


All This Could Be Yours

by mardia



Series: satellites [1]
Category: The Martian (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-23
Updated: 2015-12-23
Packaged: 2018-05-08 14:53:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 39,930
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5501852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mardia/pseuds/mardia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The events of Sol 18 will be analyzed by NASA, the media, and, eventually, by a congressional hearing. </p><p>This is what everyone can acknowledge to be true--during the trek to the MAV, the communications satellite is ripped from its moorings and careens through the air, knocking both Commander Melissa Lewis and Astronaut Mark Watney off their feet and into the air.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter One

**Author's Note:**

  * For [arbitrarily](https://archiveofourown.org/users/arbitrarily/gifts).



> Happy Yuletide, arbitrarily! I saw this prompt in your Yuletide letter and couldn't resist attempting to write it, and things...sort of exploded from there. By a lot. /o\ Huge, _huge_ thanks to my beta for all of her encouragement and help, and thanks to everyone who listened to me shriek about this monstrosity of a fic for weeks on end.
> 
> Title comes from the song of the same name by Cold War Kids.

They make their way back to the HAB in near silence. The only sound is Mark’s pained wheezing breaths over the comms and the sound of their feet on the dirt, the hitching gait Melissa’s taken up to ease the pressure on her injured ankle. 

It’s not working too great, but Melissa keeps going, her teeth set. Her head is killing her, her ribs protest every time she takes a breath, but she keeps walking. She and Mark have thrown their arms around each other in an attempt to support the other, and finally--finally they get to Airlock 1. Once it’s repressurized, Melissa moves fast, yanking her helmet off, helping Mark to do the same. “We need to get that out,” she tells him, and Mark nods, his face a grimace of pain. 

She puts one hand on his shoulder to brace herself--and Mark--and gently closes her fist around the antenna sticking out of his chest. “Ready?” she asks. Mark dips his head in assent, and Melissa doesn’t hesitate as she yanks it out. 

Mark’s sharp cry makes her want to wince, as does the blood smeared on the antenna, her hands, but then she frowns as she looks at the jagged edge. 

Mark confirms her fears. “It’s still, it’s still in--”

“Shit,” she mutters, helping him to the sickbay, where he starts stripping down to the waist. She limps about for supplies, and finally makes her way back to Mark, who’s trying to keep himself calm, blood oozing sluggishly from the hole in his chest. 

Melissa drags a chair in for her to sit on, grabs the pliers--Mark’s already shot himself up with painkillers--and after one look into his face to make sure he’s onboard, gets to work. 

Later, her stomach will lurch at the memory of it, using the pliers on his flesh, having to staple the wound shut--but when she’s in the moment, her hands are steady and her breathing is even, right up until she verifies that all the shrapnel is out of Mark’s body. 

After she’s put the bandages on, Mark says, his eyes closed as he sits back in exhaustion, "Well. Fuck."

"Yeah," Melissa says, in complete agreement. "That about covers it."

*

The events of Sol 18 will be analyzed by NASA, the media, and, eventually, by a congressional hearing. 

This is what everyone can acknowledge to be true--during the trek to the MAV, the communications satellite is ripped from its moorings and careens through the air, knocking both Commander Melissa Lewis and Astronaut Mark Watney off their feet and into the air. 

Mark was impaled by a piece of the satellite, which ironically kept him alive but took out his bio-monitor and comms, leaving the crew to think that he was dead.

Melissa went tumbling head over heels through the air, eventually landing on the ground in a crumpled heap. She hit her head on the inside of her helmet, there was a sharp pain in her chest, and her ankle--

"Commander! Mark! Commander, can you hear us?"

This is what Melissa tells NASA, what she says in the TV interviews, what she will testify to under oath in front of the congressional committee--she was too far away for the crew to rescue her, not in the time they had before the MAV would've tipped. Because of her difficulty breathing, because of her injured ankle, because the comms and bio-monitor were on the fritz--

\--because the best-laid plans so often go astray--

\--Melissa had only a few moments to make the best call she could. 

"You have to go. Martinez, I am giving the order, you launch now." It hurt so much to talk, to even breathe, her head was spinning and her vision was blurred but she meant it, every word.

There was only static to answer her, the comms having finally failed, but a few seconds or minutes later, there was the blinding light of the engines firing, and as the MAV launched into orbit, Melissa slipped into unconsciousness.

*

“Mark, you have _got_ to stop moving around so much,” Melissa tells him. “We can’t have these staples popping out all the time.”

“Commander, with all due respect,” Mark starts, and Melissa knows where this is going, so she cuts him off by briskly stapling the injury back together again. Mark hisses sharply, but continues in a moment, reaching for his shirt, “It’s not like I can leave you to do all the work by yourself. You’re hobbling around on one leg, your ribs are still busted to hell, and you’ve probably got a concussion. What part of that sounds like I should just laze around in my cot and leave you to do all the work?”

“The part where I’m still your commanding officer and can tell you what to do?” Melissa says, but she keeps her voice light as she says it. Mark raises an eyebrow at her, and Melissa exhales. “Just take it easy, okay? No need to have you bleeding all over the HAB.”

“I’ll take it easy if you start taking the Vicodin,” Mark counters, and Melissa shrugs. 

“Okay, sure.”

Mark pauses at her easy concession, and then he squints at her. “Are you lying to me?”

“Yes,” Melissa admits, and grabs the makeshift crutch Mark had fashioned for her and, as Mark put it, hobbles off before Mark can do anything more than yell, “Oh, come on,” after her.

If Melissa’s honest with herself, she knows she’s pushing it. She’s breathing easier than before, thank God, but she’s still got the headaches, and the less said about her ankle, the better. Mark has a valid point, she knows that, it’s just--

She needs to keep moving. She needs to be active, to focus on making an inventory of their remaining supplies, the tools they have available, rather than letting herself dwell on the impossible, terrifying situation they’re in. 

Mark finds her glowering over the rations. “No matter how much you glare at them, they’re not gonna multiply.”

She flicks her gaze over at him, but smiles a little. “But what if I glare really, really hard?”

Mark laughs at that, and then winces. “Ah. Maybe ease up on the jokes until my staples come out?”

“I’ll spare you my stand-up routine,” Melissa says. 

He smiles at her, sweetly, and says, “Come on, let’s talk through this shitstorm we’ve landed ourselves into.”

Melissa raises a dubious eyebrow at him, but when Mark leads her towards one of the consoles, she follows, leaning heavily on her crutch.

What Mark means, as it turns out, is creating another video log. Melissa has to restrain the urge to flick her bangs out of her eyes--she’s never been entirely comfortable in front of the cameras, much to the despair of NASA’s PR department, and these are hardly ideal circumstances. 

Melissa knows the reasoning behind Mark’s insistence on making these, she even agrees with it, she just--isn’t comfortable. 

But then, Melissa didn’t sign up for the Navy, for NASA, to be comfortable. 

Mark breezes through the intro, saying, “So, the good Commander and I have been going over our current situation, and we’ve come to the obvious conclusion that we’re pretty much fucked right now.”

Melissa can’t help but raise another eyebrow at him, and Mark raises his own, silently asking, _You going to argue?_

She can’t, and she won’t, so Melissa exhales. “We’re stranded on Mars with no way to communicate with the _Hermes_ or NASA. Everyone back home thinks we’re dead, and the next manned mission to Mars won’t happen for another four years.”

Mark nods, and continues where she left off. “If the oxygenator breaks down, we’ll suffocate.”

Melissa says, “If the water reclaimer breaks down, we’ll die of thirst.”

“Let’s not forget that if the Hab breaches, we’ll just implode,” Mark offers.

Melissa’s mouth twists as she finishes, “And if our luck miraculously holds and none of those things happen, we’re still going to eventually starve to death when our food runs out.”

Laying out their situation in such stark terms should have Melissa lightheaded from panic, should have her stomach sinking in despair.

But Mark is watching her now, his gaze solid and steady. And when Melissa looks at him--when she looks at him, she sees her crew, she sees an anomaly that shouldn’t have been able to survive that storm, but somehow did anyway, despite impossible odds.

They’re still alive, despite all the reasons they shouldn’t be. 

“So yeah,” Mark’s saying now, “--when we say that we’re fucked, we know what we’re talking about.” Despite his words, though, he’s still looking over at her, still waiting for what she’ll say next. 

He’s waiting for her to lead, and in that exact moment, Melissa finds herself able to say what needs to be said. “We’re not dying here,” she tells Mark, tells whoever will watch this video, years down the line. “Neither one of us is going to die on this planet.”

Melissa has no idea how much her words will be tested in the following months. All the same, when Mark looks at her right then, he smiles a little bit, as if he believes her.

*

They leave the cameras running for their brainstorming sessions. Despite the fact that Melissa is still the commanding officer of their makeshift crew of two, Mark’s really the MVP of their outfit, given that he’s not only a mechanical engineer, but a botanist. So he takes point, as it were, and Melissa is there to help him bounce ideas, test his theories, poke holes until they come up with a plan that won’t get them killed.

Obviously, the first step is rationing. That’ll only get them so far, but it’ll get them somewhere. Once they get through that math, which is both very basic and very depressing, it’s time for the Hail Marys. 

Like farming the Thanksgiving potatoes in their own shit.

Mark tries and fails to hold in his laughter at Melissa’s reaction, grinning widely at her as he says, “No offense, but you should see your face right now, it’s incredible.”

“Oh, I bet,” Melissa says in her driest possible tones. She’s gotten into the habit of playing the straight man to Mark, and it’s an easy role to fall into, especially when Mark just looks so _delighted_ at every deadpan crack she makes. “What about the water issue? We’ll need far more water for the crops than we’re capable of getting right now from the water reclaimer.”

“Yeah, I have an idea about that,” Mark says. “But you’re not gonna like it.”

“I’m gonna like this part less than harvesting food in my own shit?” Melissa asks, skeptical. 

As it turns out, Mark’s right. Given that the plan consists of setting a fire inside of the Hab, however, Melissa thinks she has an airtight excuse for her alarm. 

They spend days going over the math, triple-checking everything. Melissa is the one to catch the biggest flaw, looking over Mark’s equations and going, “Nope, this is wrong.”

“What is?” Mark asks, peering over her shoulder. 

“You haven’t accounted for the oxygen,” Melissa says, and when Mark blinks in confusion, she elaborates. “The oxygen we’ll be exhaling, Mark. Your calculations don’t account for the extra oxygen we’re exhaling into the atmosphere.”

“Oh,” Mark says. “Oh, fuck me.” He shakes his head, and huffs out a rueful laugh. “Thank God for you, Commander.”

Melissa exhales, and goes into the breach. “Melissa.” As Mark looks at her, she shrugs, and explains. “It’s a bit ridiculous to cling to rank under the circumstances.” The circumstances being that, if things go well, they’ll be trapped together alone on this planet for four years. Melissa’s career military, but Mark isn’t, and Melissa’s speculating he’ll respond better to a loosening of the rules than rigid adherence to a professional code of conduct that has no bearing on their current situation. He’s a good guy, a good astronaut, and Melissa’s willing to bet he’ll follow her orders, whether or not he’s calling her Commander when he does it.

“Oh,” Mark says, and Melissa doesn’t need to be a shrink to accurately note the surprise on his face. 

“It’s just a thought,” Melissa says, turning back to her tablet. 

“No, no, it’s--” When she looks back up, Mark looks abashed, and he’s close enough that Melissa can see the faint flush to his cheeks, the pink spreading along the back of his neck and the tips of his ears. It’s surprisingly endearing, almost as much as the way he awkwardly says, “It makes sense. Melissa.”

Melissa holds back her smirk, but only just. “Keep practicing, it’ll come easier to you.”

*

Melissa’s the one who sets up the strict schedules. As tempting as it is to pull figurative all-nighters to solve the issues of food and lack of communication, they need routines. They’ll need off time to recharge. So she sets up a schedule, specific meal times for breakfast, lunch and dinner. She sets up time for them to work on their problems and insists that in the evenings, they give their brains and bodies a break.

Mark, for all his tendency to be a workaholic, jumps at the chance. He’s a social guy, an extrovert, and even though Melissa had meticulously scheduled in “private time” to make sure they had a little breathing room to themselves each day--so far it’s just easier, more pleasant, to spend her free time with Watney. To have a friendly face in front of her, a human voice in her ear to block out the sound of the storms that still occasionally rage over their heads. 

Tonight, Mark is looking through Melissa’s music collection. To be more specific, he’s giving her shit over her music collection.

Luckily, Melissa has no shame when it comes to this subject. “I’ve never hidden my love of disco,” she says with a shrug. 

“Yeah, but I didn’t think it was this bad,” Mark says, looking up from the laptop with an exaggerated look of horror on his face. “Seriously, Commander. A month on Mars, and you brought _nothing_ but disco? A little variety would’ve killed you?”

“Well, what did you bring to Mars, then?” Melissa asks him, reasonably enough.

To her surprise--and delight--Mark blinks, then slowly turns red. “Um.”

“Oh boy,” Melissa says, feeling the grin start to spread across her face. “I’m going to enjoy this, aren’t I.”

Ignoring Mark’s flustered protests, she boots her own laptop up, and quickly trawls through the music folders that Mark’s shared with her. It doesn’t take long at all for her to see what has Mark blushing so badly. 

She finally lifts her gaze back up, and Mark turns even redder at the huge, surely ridiculous grin splitting her face right now. “Oh, I see now.”

“Look, Commander, Melissa--”

“No, no, this is wonderful. This is some good, good stuff here, Mark.”

“I grew up with the music--”

“I bet you did,” Melissa says, laughing outright now. “Did you borrow your mom’s eyeliner as a kid, too?”

“No,” Mark insists, but in a way where Melissa would bet the house the answer is really yes. In response, she only grins as she hits play.

Patrick Stump starts wailing away from the laptop's speakers, and Mark can’t hold it in anymore, a rueful chuckle escaping him even as he insists, “The disco is still far, far more embarrassing than this.”

“That’s a matter of opinion,” Melissa says primly, but she’s smirking as she says it.

“ _One night and one more time, thanks for the memories, even though they weren’t so great…_ ” As the song continues, Melissa hums along, and when Mark finally groans and puts his face in his hand, she gives into temptation and cackles in delight. Her ribs don’t ache at all under the strain, and she counts it as a victory, almost as much as the sight of Mark’s blushing face.

*

The entire morning, Mark’s been looking at her left hand. Or, more accurately, what’s not on her left hand. 

“I put the ring away with the rest of my things,” Melissa explains, not bothering to look up from the instant coffee she’s stirring. Mark freezes guiltily next to her, and Melissa gives him a wry smile. “You were very loudly not asking, so I thought I’d just tell you.”

“I’m just a little surprised, that’s all,” Mark says. He pauses, but he asks the question. “Why take off your wedding ring?”

Melissa takes a long sip of her coffee, delaying her answer. “It was a distraction.”

Mark doesn't leave it there, not that Melissa really expected him to. “It’s okay to think about your family, Melissa.”

Melissa looks at him. “I have a job to do here, Mark. I’ve got potatoes to farm, I’ve got to make sure you don’t blow yourself up, I can’t get distracted and weepy every time I catch sight of my left hand.”

Mark’s mouth twists for a moment, then he says, very gently, “So don’t wear the ring, if you don’t want to. Just talk to me about it.” Melissa goes still, and Mark adds, still so careful, “If you want to, that is.”

It’s a bad idea. She has problems to work on, a mission to complete, a crew member to take care of, and yet the words rise up, despite herself. Mark is, in a very real sense, all that Melissa has out here--and there’s a tiny part of her saying that if she can’t talk to him, now when they’re dancing on a cliff’s edge of survival, then what’s the point? 

“I keep picturing him at the funeral,” she says, shaking her head. “Most of it, I can push to the side but--imagining him at the funeral.” Melissa’s never considered herself to have much of an active imagination, per se, but she can see the image in her mind’s eye as clear as anything, Robert sitting in his seat, head bowed as he receives the folded flag. She sees it clear as day, Robert’s composed face in the bright sunlight, his white-knuckled grip on the flag in his lap. 

She can see it so clearly, and it hits her like a blow to the stomach every time she does.

“I was career military when I met him, I keep telling myself that it’s okay, he knew what he was getting into when he married me.” Melissa gives a bitter smile, shaking her head. “It doesn’t help. Nothing does.” She inhales and finishes up, saying, “So I put it aside, and I work the problems in front of me, and I do my job.” 

She looks up at Mark, and she says, “So let’s do our jobs, all right?”

“Okay,” Mark says, gently nodding his head. “Let’s work the problem.”

Melissa looks at the work laid out in front of them, and sighs as the solution finally occurs to her. “I know how we solve the heating problem with the rover.”

“Yeah?” Mark asks, perking up.

“Yeah. All we need is a little plutonium, and as it turns out, I know exactly where it is,” Melissa says, adding dryly, “given that I’m the one that buried it.”

*

“I'm just saying,” Mark says, doing a truly abysmal job of hiding his apprehension, “I could be the one to go after _Pathfinder_.”

“Yes,” Melissa says, “Except that I'll be the one doing it.”

“If something goes wrong--”

“Then better it happen with me in the rover than you,” Melissa says briskly, but the unhappy pinch to Mark’s mouth has her adding, in a gentler tone, “Mark. One of us has to stay behind, and it should be you.”

Melissa’s confident in her abilities, but that doesn't change the reality that Mark’s degrees in botany and mechanical engineering are, right now, more valuable than her own. If something goes really wrong, better to have Mark in the relative safety of the Hab.

All the same, it'll be over twenty sols away from the Hab, away from the only other living being on the planet, and on the day of her departure, Melissa has a hard time hiding her own unease. Mark has been engaged in elaborate--and mostly unnecessary--inspections of the modified rover, until Melissa finally has to clear her throat. “Mark, I'm ready.”

“Yeah,” Mark says, “I know.”

He doesn't make a move towards the Hab, and Melissa doesn't move towards the rover. “Well, I'll suppose I'll just have to suffer through the boogie fever without you,” Mark says at last, and Melissa can't help but smile.

“Give it a chance, you'll learn to like it,” she says. 

Mark scoffs dramatically. “I'll learn to tolerate it out of sheer self-defense, you mean.”

“Tomato, tomahto,” Melissa says, and over Mark’s laughter, says, “If I can give your beloved Fall Out Boy a chance over the trip, you can learn to like ABBA.”

Mark theatrically groans, but falls silent at last. Finally he looks at her, and Melissa is close enough to Mark that she can see him smiling inside his helmet. “Good luck out there, Melissa.”

It's one of the few times he's used her first name without stumbling over it. “I'll see you when I get back, Mark.”

Driving away from the Hab is...not a pleasant feeling. To distract herself, Melissa sets up the camera to create a video log. She still feels stiff and awkward while making these, but it has to be done.

She talks about how she plans to navigate her way to _Pathfinder_ , mostly by Phobos, given the lack of landmarks in the valley they're in. “I'll pick up soil and rock samples during each EVA. Might as well take advantage of being the first person out here, behave like a real astronaut.”

“I'm signing off now, but just to show Watney that I'm a woman of my word…” She hits play, and as the music fills the rover, she gives her driest possible look at the camera. “He'd better be listening to ABBA, that's all I'm going to say.”

Melissa can't say she was ever a fan of bands like this as a kid--she’d taken a ridiculous pride in being a throwback to an earlier era--but even she can admit the songs are catchy. The second time she catches herself humming along to the chorus, she laughs at herself a little and sings along for real, shifting to nonsensical la-las when she can't make out the lyrics.

*

This has been, by far, the absolute worst road trip Melissa has ever been on in her life.

And if this mission is a success, she and Mark will have a far longer trip to make to the Schiaparelli crater, and right now, Melissa can barely stand to think of it. God, that'll be hell.

And if they get the opportunity to really go, if they can make contact with NASA and find a way off this planet, Melissa will get down on her knees and thank whatever higher power is out there for the privilege.

She knows that, but it doesn't make this trip any easier. The rover stinks to high heaven, the cramped quarters has her back aching, and the solitude--

Melissa knows the trick to getting through deprivation is to focus on what you have, versus what you don’t, but she can’t seem to stop herself; she keeps waiting to hear Mark’s voice in the rover, in her ear. She keeps looking over her shoulder, expecting to find Mark behind her, cracking jokes about the smell and the lack of scenery. 

He’d probably try and name the valley after her, actually. Say something like, _under the circumstances, I think we’ve earned the right to name something after ourselves, don’t you think?_

It’s easy to picture his reactions, easy to hear his cheerful voice, and that’s exactly what Melissa tries so hard not to do, tries to drown out her imagination with music, with the sound of her own voice singing along, until her throat goes dry and her voice cracks on the glory notes. 

She sleeps poorly during the downtime, her back is a mess, and at the lowest moments Melissa wonders if the smell is ever going to leave her nostrils. And it’s so frustrating, so irritating that Melissa can lock away the memories of her family, Robert, the crew, _home_ \--all of that she can shut up in a corner of her brain without ever looking at it--but Mark Watney is the thing she can’t shake, the one thing she can’t keep herself from missing. 

So yes, this road trip sucks. But, eleven sols into the trip, Melissa finds _Pathfinder_ and the Sojourner rover to go with it, and that is what’s important. 

Twenty-two sols after leaving the Hab, Melissa finally returns, _Pathfinder_ safely strapped to the roof of the rover and Sojourner stashed inside. Her heartbeat’s speeding up a little at the sight of the Hab--and then she sees Mark in his EVA suit standing outside, waiting for her, and the grin is spreading across her face almost before Melissa realizes it. 

Mark’s already speaking through the comm before Melissa’s even exited the rover, saying, “Nice work!”

“Piece of cake,” Melissa huffs, groaning a little as she finally steps outside--her back is not happy right now. Still, she’s grinning broadly as Mark comes over, so clearly delighted that Melissa has to laugh a little as he claps her on the shoulders, beaming at her, at the sight of _Pathfinder_ , their potential salvation, gleaming under the sun. 

They could start work on getting _Pathfinder_ running today, but Melissa’s back is a wreck, and Mark seems content to wait until the morning, when they’re both in better shape. Inside the Hab, Melissa glances over at the potatoes, which are still thriving, thank God. “Nice work on not blowing up the Hab,” she says to Mark, who dips his head in a show of humility. 

“Well, I do aim to please.” He’s shooting her a sideways glance, though, and asks, “How’s your back?”

Melissa would shrug, if her shoulders weren’t so damn stiff. “I’ll live,” she says, but Mark looks skeptical. 

“Here, let me show you what I put together,” he says. “Had to cannibalize Johannsen’s cot to put it together, but I think it’s worth it…”

What it is, Melissa finds out, is a functional _bathtub._

“Oh my God,” Melissa says, disbelieving. 

“Right?” Mark says, proud and rightfully so. 

“I love it. Go away, Mark, I’m going to get into this bathtub and stay here for _days_ ,” Melissa says, still staring. 

Mark laughs, but once the bathtub is filled, he actually does leave her to it--there’s still plenty to be done with the rover, and Mark had insisted on finishing it himself. “You’re no good to the mission if you throw your back out,” he’d warned, and Melissa had listened, for once. So once he’s gone, Melissa strips down and climbs into the tub. Mark made a makeshift curtain out of canvas, so Melissa is just fine with staying in this blissfully hot water for as long as possible. 

By the time Mark comes back to the rover, having safely dumped the RTG four miles away from the Hab, where it won’t break open and poison them with deadly radiation, Melissa is clean for the first time in weeks, wearing dry clothes she hasn’t been sitting in for over twenty-two sols, with her damp hair tied back loosely from her face. 

“Better?” Mark asks as he strips out of his suit. 

“Yes,” Melissa says, serenely, but Mark doesn’t seem convinced. 

“I suppose it’s too much to hope that you took a Vicodin?”

“We need to save the Vicodin, Mark,” Melissa starts, defensively, and when Mark raises an eyebrow, realizes she’s just proven his point. “Okay, fine, my back’s still a little stiff. A good night’s sleep in my cot and I’ll be fine by morning.”

“Or--” Mark begins, and promptly shuts his mouth, which is enough of an aberration that it has Melissa’s eyebrows going up towards her hairline. 

“Or?” she prompts, curious, and yes--Mark’s definitely blushing now. 

“I was just going to offer to work the kinks out of your back,” he says, with a credible show at covering his awkwardness. “I know I’m not Beck, but I figure since I’m here…”

“Okay,” Melissa says, after a half-beat. “Yeah, that would be helpful, thanks.”

Nowhere in her many, many seminars on leadership did it cover letting a subordinate give you a backrub--and if it ever was, it would’ve been under the slide titled _Don’t Do This._ But Melissa’s back does hurt, and Mark’s here and it makes sense. It’d be far sillier to make a big production out of it, or risk serious injury.

All good reasons, and yet Melissa’s not prepared for her reaction once she’s facedown on the cot, and Mark’s hands are on her back. 

It’s not just that she feels vulnerable in this position, it’s not just that Mark’s hands feel good on her aching muscles, warm and firm and so skilled at finding the worst of the knots and kneading them loose. It’s the intensity of her response that catches her by surprise, the overwhelming _relief_ at being touched after so long--

Melissa’s lying on her stomach, her head resting on her folded arms, so it’s the easiest thing in the world to hide her face in the crook of her elbow, so that Mark can’t see...whatever is on her face at the moment. 

“All right?” Mark asks, so maybe he can tell what’s going on with her after all. Some of it, anyway. 

Melissa has to swallow twice before she’s sure that her voice will work the way she wants it to. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Okay, I’m gonna just dig in a little more here, tell me if it’s too much,” Mark says, and Melissa nods, right before his thumbs start to dig into the muscle, right at the worst of the knots, and Melissa hisses into her pillow in mingled pain and relief. 

By the time Mark’s finished, Melissa’s practically melted into her cot. Half-asleep, she manages to lift her head up to mumble, “I owe you one, Mark.”

Her eyes are falling shut, but she still hears Mark’s chuckle. “Let’s just call it even, huh?”

Melissa would say something, but she’s falling asleep before she can reply. 

*

They sit together and watch the antenna of _Pathfinder_ , stubbornly staying still despite all their work. A watched antenna never spins, Melissa thinks to herself, and bites back a rueful smile. 

“It’ll work soon,” she says instead. 

“Yeah,” Mark says, his voice weary. Melissa turns her head a little, and sure enough, inside his helmet, Mark’s eyes are drifting shut. 

“You could take a rest,” she offers. “I can keep watch.”

Mark assents, and soon Melissa is left to stare alone at the antenna, Mark a comforting dead weight against her side. Melissa keeps her breathing steady, her mind clear, and she keeps on waiting. 

When the antenna finally spins, Melissa lets out a little yelp of surprise that has Mark jumping up from his seat, disoriented, demanding, “What? What happened?”

“It moved,” Melissa breathes out, staring wide-eyed at the antenna. “Oh my God, it’s pointing at the yes sign. It’s pointing at the yes--”

Mark shouts joyfully, arms outstretched in victory while Melissa starts to laugh, her vision blurred until she blinks the tears away. 

Turns out that it’s very awkward hugging someone in the EVA suits, but somehow Mark and Melissa manage just fine.

*

"Holy fuck, it worked," Mark breathes out as the screen lights up with words. Melissa's chest, her entire body, feels too small for the joy she's feeling right now, huddled up with Mark in the rover, able to truly communicate with NASA, with _home_ at last.

_This is Vincent Kapoor. We've been watching you since Sol 49. The whole world's been rooting for you guys. Amazing job, getting Pathfinder. We're working on rescue plans. JPL is adjusting Ares 4's MDV to do a short overland flight. They'll pick you up, then take you with them to Schiaparelli. We're putting together a supply mission to keep you fed until Ares 4 arrives._

If Melissa wasn't already sitting down, her knees would've gone weak at the last sentence. Supply mission. Staying alive until the Ares 4 mission. Everything they've been working towards, and it might actually be within reach.

"Jesus Christ," Mark's saying now, sounding as overwhelmed as Melissa feels. They share a dazed, disbelieving look, and then Melissa laughs.

"You'd better start typing," she tells him, and Mark beams as he turns, his fingers flying over the keyboard.

"Glad to hear it," he says as he types, dictating his words. "We're really looking forward to not dying." As Melissa snorts, he continues, "Commander Lewis and I want to make it clear it wasn't the crew's fault." Melissa sobers, and Mark finishes, "How did they react when they found out we were alive?"

He hits enter, and they wait.

And keep waiting. "Send another message," Melissa says after a second. "See if they're still receiving."

Mark does just that, and finally they get a response.

 _We haven't told the crew you're alive yet. We need them to concentrate on their mission of getting home_. There's more from Vincent, asking about the crops Mark had mentioned during the earlier rounds of Speak-and-Spell with the ASCII table, but Melissa can't focus on that, she's too busy gaping at the words "we haven't told the crew", while Mark repeats, in a tone of growing outrage, "What the fuck. What the _fuck_?"

Melissa should be calming him down, she should be taking over the keyboard--from the way Mark's now banging at the keys, he's likely dropping the word fuck everywhere in his replies to Vincent and JPL, but--

But Melissa isn't in that rover. She's back on Sol 18 of the mission, the storm raging around her as she's lying in the Martian soil, dazed and injured and ordering Martinez to leave her to her death.

It's Mark's furiously bouncing knee, knocking against her leg, that drags her back to the present, and Melissa comes back to herself to find Mark angrily muttering to himself while he types on the keyboard. Melissa blinks again, and the words he's typing--

"Mark. Stop."

He stops typing immediately, though the stubborn set to his jaw tells Melissa he isn't regretting a single thing. "Melissa--all due respect, this is _bullshit_."

Melissa fixes him with a steady look. "Yeah, I'm well aware, thanks. You still can't say any of that."

His jaw is still set, but Mark doesn’t protest as she pulls the keyboard over and starts to type, carefully deleting Mark’s words--including the f-bombs.

_Commander Lewis here. I want to state for the record that both Astronaut Watney and I strongly object to the crew being kept in the dark. They should be told that we’re alive._

Another long pause before the reply, long enough that Mark says, “For the record, this is complete and utter horseshit--”

“Mark,” Melissa says, and she puts a little snap to her voice now. “Enough.” Mark obediently falls silent, but Melissa can read the tension in his mouth, and she knows they’ll be discussing this later, loudly and at length.

Finally Vincent responds, with nothing more than, _Your objections have been noted._

“Our objections have been noted,” Mark repeats in disbelief. “What the fuck does that even mean?”

“They’re still going to keep the crew in the dark,” Melissa says, and types out, _They’re stronger than you think they are. Knowing we’re still alive isn’t going to devastate them, not when they already think they left me to die on Mars._

Melissa is saying this for Mark as much as for the crew’s sake, she needs to find a balance between following orders and validating Mark’s outrage, but Melissa’s also a realist--NASA is not telling the crew a damn thing until they’ve decided it’s time. 

Not that Mark’s going to accept this fact any time soon. “They should’ve told the crew,” he insists later in the HAB. “Jesus Christ, how did Mitch sign off on this--”

“He didn’t,” Melissa says. “It’s likely that Vincent and Sanders went over his head. Which they can do, given that they’re his bosses,” she adds, a little pointedly. For a second Mark looks angry, angry enough that Melissa is bracing herself for the debate, the argument, but then he lets out a huff of breath and stares down at his feet. 

“How are you so calm about this?” he asks finally, not in anger, but in genuine bafflement. 

Melissa chooses her words carefully. “I’m not calm, Mark. I...this is how things are. No matter how much you might want to yell, this is how things work.” Her stomach can twist at the thought, at the memory of Johannsen calling out her name in fear and despair, Martinez exhorting her over the comms to _get the fuck up, Commander, let’s go--_

Melissa can know exactly what her crew must be feeling right now, the guilt they’re carrying on their backs, and it still won’t change the fact that she can’t tell them she’s alive, and it’s not her place to tell NASA what to do. 

Or to let Mark drop f-bombs on a broadcast that, as Vincent Kapoor had pointed out, was being broadcast live to the entire world. 

And like that, Melissa remembers the bigger picture again. “Mark. They’ve got a rescue plan. Today was a good day.”

He gives her a reluctant half-smile at that. “I know, I know.” With a sigh, Mark sits down next to her on the bench. “Today’s a huge win, I just--I want the crew to be in on it, you know? I want them to be celebrating with us.”

“They will be,” Melissa says. “Once we get off this planet, they’ll be celebrating as hard as everyone else. More, even. Can you imagine the toasts Martinez is going to give?”

“Oh God, I hope nobody gives that man a microphone,” Mark says with a shudder, and just like that, they’re on the same page again.

*

The depth of the adjustment Melissa needs to make now they’re no longer cut off from NASA is staggering. They go out to check emails and the data dumps on the rover five times a day, minimum, and it’s just--jolting, to no longer be a crew of two, but to be connected to pretty much all of Earth.

And Melissa does mean _all_ of Earth. They’ve gotten emails from President Marin, rockstars and celebrities, their alma maters--Mark gloats for _hours_ upon the University of Chicago informing them that thanks to their successful potato crop, they’ve officially colonized Mars.

The best emails, though, the emails that linger, are the ones from their families. 

It’d be possible to check the emails separately, but not practical--if NASA sends critical info, they both need to know about it right away, and besides it’s--oddly comfortable, having Mark there, marveling together at the crazy situation they’re in, the fervor that must be happening back home.

At first they’d tried to keep things separate, Mark courteously averting his eyes when Melissa read an email from Robert or her moms, Melissa doing the same when Mark got an email from his parents. But then Mark’s mom had shared that she’d stuck a bumper sticker of Marvin the Martian on her car, and Melissa had burst out laughing when Mark shared the joke, and Mark had felt compelled to share that information in his reply--just like he’s been compelled to share her supposedly inflicting disco on him, or how he caught her singing while tending to the potatoes _one time_ \--

And somehow it just becomes natural, simpler, to read those emails aloud to each other. This is how Melissa discovers that Mark is every inch his mother’s son, down to the bad jokes and tragic love for the Chicago Cubs. This is how Mark discovers that Melissa got her love of disco from her mama, that her mom’s taken up pottery as stress relief, that her brother’s finally been convinced into using social media as a way to handle all the media attention.

And of course, Melissa can better keep Mark in check if she’s there in the rover with him.

“No Mark, you cannot tell the team of botanists to go fuck themselves,” Melissa tells him.

“But it would make me feel a lot better,” Mark argues. “They’re trying to micromanage my crops from 140 million miles away, I get to tell them to go fuck themselves.”

“Yeah, except that’s not true. At all.”

Mark gets a mischievous look on his face, and says, slyly, “You know, if I was able to send something else to NASA, maybe I wouldn’t--”

“You’re not requesting sheet music,” Melissa says flatly, picking up this old argument again for what must be the sixth time now. “Just because you caught me singing _one time_ does not make me a human jukebox.”

“You’re the only person on this entire planet capable of carrying a tune, that _absolutely_ makes you a human jukebox,” Mark counters.

“See, this is the beauty of outranking you,” Melissa says loftily. “I get to ignore your ludicrous suggestions.” She has a sneaking suspicion Mark eventually will wear her down on the sheet music, but there’s no need to make it easy on him.

Besides, Melissa has very little sympathy for Mark’s dilemma with the botanists back on Earth--not when she’s the one stuck dealing with NASA’s shrinks.

“What on earth has got you making that face?” Mark asks with curiosity, walking up to Melissa as she’s looking over some emails she’d uploaded from the rover to the HAB. 

Melissa shrugs. “NASA’s psychiatrists have some thoughts,” she says, keeping her voice deliberately bland, and Mark chuckles. Melissa goes on, explaining, “They’re concerned about the potential for any interpersonal conflict between us while we’re stranded here.”

Mark’s eyebrows shoot up. “Oh, really? And what did you say to that?”

“The truth,” Melissa says, leaning back against the counter, the better to play up her nonchalance. “That I can manage you just fine.”

“Is that so?” Mark asks, folding his arms.

Melissa smirks at him. “Mark, are we really gonna try and pretend otherwise?”

Mark tries to hold it in, but the smile escapes him, just like Melissa knew it would. “Nah.”

Melissa smiles back at him. “And that’s just what I told NASA.”

It’s the honest truth, no matter how Dr. Shields and the rest of the shrinks back home fret--she and Mark are fine. They work well together, they’re in sync--for God’s sake, Melissa’s even wearing him down on the disco and the Happy Days reruns. The time Melissa had so scrupulously scheduled for solitude just seems unnecessary now. They’re doing fine.

*

It’s nighttime, and Melissa is halfway through reading her chapter of _Murder on the Orient Express_ aloud while Mark is heckling from his cot, which is right below hers. (Technically, the cot Melissa’s using now was Vogel’s previously, but she’d moved her things over ages ago.)

“Well, what do you know,” Mark says, sleepily, but she can hear the grin in his voice. “Finally found something the great Commander Lewis is terrible at--French accents.”

“Zis is the most ‘orrible insubordination, I will not _stand_ for such outrage,” Melissa says in her thickest French accent, hamming it up, and Mark bursts into laughter. 

“Whatever you say, Pepe le Pew.”

Melissa gives up the ghost and laughs at herself, even as she demands, “Do you want me to keep reading or not?”

“No, no, come on, it’s your turn, it’s your chapter,” Mark says quickly. “Besides, how else am I gonna find out what happens on this crazy murder train?”

“You could read it yourself,” Melissa says, but with no real heat behind it. 

“I like hearing you tell it,” Mark says, his voice a little quieter, almost contemplative. Then he adds, more brightly, “Horrible fake French accent and all.”

Melissa smiles to herself, and keeps reading on without any more protests. At the end of the chapter, Mark calls up to her bunk, “Bet you half a potato it’s one of the Americans that’s the murderer.”

“No bet,” Melissa says. 

“Come on, Melissa. Half a potato, how can you pass up that action?”

“Quite easily, given that it’s a potato we’re talking about.” Melissa is positively dreading the day they run out of ketchup. 

*

Under the circumstances, under the constant threat of death or disaster that looms over them, the fear that’s a quiet, constant itch in the back of their minds--despite all that, things are going shockingly well. Their crops are growing, NASA is on track to deliver the supplies by Sol 856, and has finally relented on letting Mark and Melissa communicate with the rest of crew on the _Hermes_ \--and most importantly, both of them are still alive, still surviving. 

Things are going well, so of course it can’t last.

And it doesn’t.

Months later, during the debriefs, Melissa will cut herself absolutely zero slack for not realizing the dangers with regards to Airlock 1. Mark will argue with her, Mitch will repeatedly point out that the brightest minds in NASA didn’t spot the possibility of the airlock failing--and none of it does any good. That failure is on Melissa’s head, and there it will stay, because she will always believe that she should’ve seen it coming. They were using the Hab for far longer than it was intended to be used, had gotten into the stupid habit of using that particular airlock far more frequently than the others, putting it under even more strain--

She should’ve spotted the danger. It was her responsibility, her failing, and Mark nearly died as a result of her mistake.

Two things save them the night that the airlock is breached--the EVA suits they’re still wearing, and the duck tape that they always carry with them. There’s no warning, the airlock is repressuring and then--boom. 

The airlock flies and takes them both along for the ride. Melissa’s slammed against the side, momentarily knocked senseless, and Mark, Mark--

Mark’s faceplate has a hole in it, it’s leaking oxygen like a goddamn _sieve,_ and Melissa can hear his terrified, too-rapid breathing, see the light from his helmet casting his face in sharp relief as he comes that much closer to--

“Here,” Melissa says, her voice shaking as she lurches towards him, “Here, I’ve got you, it’s fine, it’s fine--”

Together they get the tape on to plug the hole in his helmet, cover the cracks, Melissa frantically ripping off strips of tape until Mark finally gives her the signal to stop. “Okay?” Melissa asks, and when Mark nods, his eyes still too wide from fear, she rests her hands on his shoulders, holding on just as hard as she can. 

“You’re fine, we’re fine,” Melissa breathes out, and Mark shakes his head. 

“No,” he says, his voice full of sorrow. “No, we’re not.”

Intellectually, Melissa knows what they’ll find as soon as they exit the airlock. She knows, she’s braced herself, but seeing the little farm they’d worked so hard for covered in frost, all those dead plants…

“Come on,” Melissa says at last, gently tugging at Mark’s arm. Disappointment is thick in her throat, but she keeps it out of her voice as best as she can. “We’ll spend the night in the rover, and we’ll--regroup in the morning.”

It takes Mark a long moment to respond. “Yeah,” he says, his voice flat. “Yeah, okay.” 

Melissa keeps her hand on Mark’s arm for the short, bitter walk back to the rover.

*

The following days are a misery. They work to put the Hab back together, get on with the grim, demoralizing work of clearing out the tiny farm on which they’d pinned their hopes, their survival. They patch the Hab back together with canvas, triple-check all the systems, and once the Hab is repressurized and running, Melissa screws up her courage and takes her helmet off, gulping in air and ignoring her racing heartbeat. After a moment, she can even muster up a faint smile to Mark, standing next to her. “Piece of cake.”

“All right then,” Mark says, and takes his own helmet off. Melissa fights back the burst of anxiety at seeing him do it, the irrational desire to tell him to put it back on, to stay _safe_. 

But that’s absurd. They’re not safe here. They’re not safe anywhere on this planet. In about 400 sols, they’ll begin to starve; by the time the probe lands on Mars with supplies, they’ll be long dead. It’s simple math, inescapable no matter how many times they run the numbers, count their remaining potatoes and rations--they’ll be dead of starvation long before any help arrives. 

Even after they’ve re-established contact with NASA, the creeping sense of looming disaster won’t go away. It’s not helped by the winds buffeting the canvas that’s sealing up the gaping hole where Airlock 1 used to be, a constant reminder of just how close they are to death.

Melissa has never been so nostalgic for a submarine in her entire life. 

One night, she’s jolted out of an uneasy sleep by Mark shouting. Not just shouting--he’s yelling her name. “Mark?” Melissa calls out in response, sitting up in her cot. 

“Melissa?” Any lingering sleep she’s feeling is wiped out by the sound of Mark’s voice, the way it cracks around the syllables in her name. “Oh, Jesus,” he mutters next, and Melissa’s wide awake now. 

“Mark, what’s going on.”

“I’m fine. I swear I’m fine, you should, uh, you should go back to sleep and…”

“Yeah, not happening,” Melissa says briskly, swinging her legs over the edge of her cot and climbing down. The lighting’s dim, but Melissa can make out Mark’s face, the way he fixes his gaze on her, as if he’s afraid to look away. 

“Come on, what is it?” Melissa asks, brushing the hair out of her face. 

“You should go to sleep,” Mark says again, and Melissa just gives him an impatient look. Mark sighs and says, “I just--bad dreams, that’s all. It was stupid.”

Melissa looks at Mark for a moment, hearing the winds roaring outside, and asks carefully, “About the Hab breaching?”

Mark’s expression is shadowed, his gaze averted from her as he admits, “I was--it’s the same dream every night. I’m coming back inside through the airlock and you’re...you’re tending the potatoes, or singing to yourself as you’re working on your experiments, but every time, the airlock detaches and I’m inside it and you’re in here. I find your body in here, with the dead plants.”

Melissa doesn’t say anything, and Mark continues, “And tonight when I woke up, for a second, I couldn’t remember if that was real, or if this is real or--” He stops himself and looks at her. “So that’s what it is.”

There’s a speech on the tip of Melissa’s tongue. It’s a decent enough speech, reassuring, kind. Something to bolster morale, paper over the worst of it until morning, until another endless day of fending of disaster as best as they can. 

Melissa has that speech ready, and for the life of her, she can’t force herself to make it. 

So, tentatively, she reaches out to touch the back of Mark’s hand, just make that bit of contact. Mark instantly welcomes it, turns his hand so that he can hold hers in a tight grip. “I’m not going anywhere,” Melissa says, her voice hushed. She tries for a smile next, adding, “I wouldn’t dare, you’d end up setting yourself on fire the second I wasn’t around.”

“Probably,” Mark says, letting out a shaky chuckle. 

He still hasn’t let go of her hand, and Melissa can’t pretend that she wants him to. 

Adapt and improvise. Needs must, and what Mark needs--what she needs--is reassurance. So on impulse, on instinct, Melissa takes a breath, and she acts. “Move over,” she tells him. 

Mark blinks up at her. “What?” 

“Move over, I want to sit down.” Mark does move, and Melissa perches on the edge of the cot. “I can’t make you stop having those dreams,” Melissa says, staring down at her hand, still tangled in Mark’s. “I can’t make myself stop having those dreams either, if we’re getting down to it. But--if I’m here with you, then when you wake up--”

“I’ll see you,” Mark says, and he’s staring at her like--like she found a new food source on Mars, like she's wrought a miracle. Melissa has no idea what to do with that look, the emotion in it, so she looks away, looks up at the bottom of her bunk. Her old bunk now, she guesses. “I’ll see you, and I’ll know where you are.”

“It’s just an idea,” Melissa says. “If you aren’t comfortable--”

“No,” Mark says. “No, it’s--” he clears his throat, “It works for me.”

“Okay,” Melissa says. “Okay, then.” She licks her dry lips. “These cots are really tiny, so you’ll have to move over a bit more.”

Still watching her, Mark complies, and Melissa follows through, climbing into the cot next to him. It’s a tight fit, she’s pressed up right against Mark’s side, Mark’s arm around her shoulders to make room, and despite everything they’ve already been through, the sudden intimacy of it is--shocking. 

Mark doesn’t say anything in that moment, not a single word, but he’s warm and solid and _there_ , right there where Melissa can reach out for him, right where she can keep an eye on him to make sure that he is safe and there and alive. In that moment, it doesn’t feel awkward, it doesn’t feel as though she’s crossed a line--it just feels right, and necessary. 

“You should get to sleep,” Melissa says after a moment of charged silence. She shuts her own eyes, sure that she won’t actually be able to sleep--and yet, within what feels like just a few minutes, she’s drifting off to the sound of Mark’s steady breathing.

They don’t talk about it the next morning, just get up and get on with the day’s duties, but that night, by mutual and unspoken agreement, Melissa doesn’t move back to her old cot.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't lie, I ended up handwaving the issue of how there would be enough food for two people on Mars when originally there was just enough food for one. Just imagine they had more potatoes to start with, or that having two people on Mars meant they were able to get a larger crop of potatoes.


	2. Chapter Two

In the days leading up to their departure for the Schiaparelli crater, Melissa and Mark make several video logs. 

By far one of the most popular ones is the one that Melissa makes on Sol 381.

After detailing the modifications they’ve made to the rover that day, her progress in charting out the course they’ll need to take across the terrain, Melissa looks into the camera with an air of exasperation that is, by now, very well-practiced indeed. "On a more personal note--If Mark thinks I'm going to spend the entire trip over to the Schaiparelli crater singing nothing but old sea shanties, he has another think coming. It's just not going to happen."

From off-camera, Mark shouts back, "It would be _awesome_."

"Not happening!" Melissa calls back over her shoulder, then turns back to the camera. The lighting in the Hab is casting her gaunt face into stark relief, exaggerating her sunken cheeks, the circles underneath her eyes. "Really, I don't know where Mark got his knowledge about international waters as it pertains to Mars, but now he's insisting that we're about to become space pirates by commandeering the Ares 4 lander." She looks into the camera and repeats for emphasis, "Space pirates."

"I'm still making you that eyepatch," Mark calls out, and Melissa tosses back, "I'm still not going to wear it!"

Focusing back on the camera, she says in a more composed tone, "As you can likely tell, Mark is committing to the bit. Not just with the beard, but with his insistence that NASA refer to us as,” Melissa pauses before continuing, “Captain Red and her first mate, the Dread Pirate Blondbeard--" Melissa breaks at that last part, covering her mouth to muffle her snickering, before finally composing herself.

"Mark's actually right from a legal standpoint. For just a short time, in between boarding Ares 4 and making contact with NASA over the comm system, we will be taking control of a craft in international waters without permission."

"Come on, Lewis, you've gotta say it," Mark says to the right of Melissa, still off-camera, and Melissa glances over at him before turning back to the camera, her expression deadpan.

"A pirate's life for me," she says, straight-faced, and the video log ends on Mark cheering.

*

Rationing has not been kind to either Mark or Melissa.

It’s easier to look at Mark; thanks mostly to the beard, he seemingly hasn’t lost so much weight off of his face, so as long as Melissa focuses on that, and not his emaciated form, she can almost pretend that he’s okay.

Melissa herself isn’t so lucky. Every time that she glances at herself in the mirror or a reflective surface--which is rare these days--she has to work hard to keep from flinching. Her collarbones are sharp as knives, her limbs are skin stretched too tight over bone, and her face--

But Melissa tries to avoid looking at her face. It’s easy to manage, easier than ignoring Mark’s too-obvious worry, the way he watches her move around the Hab, the pinch to his mouth as he watches her eat her too-small rationed meals for the day. 

Melissa carries it off as best as she can, keeps her demeanor as normal as possible, and yet--somehow the only time she can really relax is at night, sleeping in her bunk next to Mark, soaking up the warmth of his body, lulled to sleep as Mark quietly recounts Cubs games he went to with his parents as a kid, sitting up high in the stands, the warm sun beating down on his head. 

“I’ll take you there sometime,” Mark murmurs to her, his hand tracing loose circles on Melissa’s bare arm. Melissa relaxes into the touch, knowing he'll avoid the sores on her skin, the places where it hurts the most. “We’ll go see a game at Wrigley, you’ll love it.”

“I’ve never liked baseball,” Melissa admits with a small smile. She shifts her weight a little, her body curving towards Mark’s. “But yeah, we’ll go. We’ll go.”

The last thing Melissa is aware of that night is the slight pressure of Mark’s fingers on her skin. 

*

And finally, there’s nothing else left to do, but to leave. They mark off their last sol on the walls, cross it out, then sign their names below it, one after the other, Melissa’s neat, small handwriting contrasting with Mark’s untidy scrawl. 

One more thing for the history books, Melissa thinks with a faint twitch of her smile, as she turns to leave the Hab for the very last time, Mark right behind her, the stride of his footsteps by now as familiar to her as the back of her own hand. 

*

Even if they’ve modified the rover to have a back room in it, the trip is still deeply, deeply unpleasant on many, many levels. 

They can’t bathe. They have nothing to eat except cold potatoes and the few rationed meals they’re saving for special occasions along the way. There’s no one to talk to but each other, no way to get away from each other if they get irritated or angry--

And yet, somehow--they’re fine. They are as fine as they can be under the circumstances, even if Mark has a godawful habit of turning on the cameras to create impromptu vlogs of their travel--and not just to document the trip or the samples they’ve taken, but to document their frankly ridiculous conversations.

“C’mon,” he’s insisting on Sol 453, while they’re still making their way through Mawrth Vallis, “You have to admit I got pretty good at The Hustle back at the Hab. You taught me well.”

Melissa holds back a smile at the memory of that disco party, as Mark had called it, and shrugs instead. “Eh. It was adequate.”

Of course, Mark takes the bait. “Adequate, she says. I _killed_ at The Hustle, and you know it.”

“As the foremost expert on The Hustle on this entire planet,” Melissa says, playing it up, “I’d grade your Hustle at a solid...C-plus.”

It takes everything Melissa has not to break out laughing, especially when she can feel Mark’s faux-outraged glare pinned on her face. “We are the only two people on this planet, and you can’t even grade me on a curve?”

“Now, Mark,” Melissa says, and if her voice is trembling a little from suppressed laughter, if her mouth is twitching, she can’t be blamed at all, she really can’t. “Just because we’re stranded on Mars is no reason to start lowering our standards.”

*

The trip into Arabia Terra is uneventful, thank God. They drive, they sleep, they charge up the solar cells on Air Days and hang out in the back of the rover, watching old reruns. During the drives, which they trade off, Melissa sings anything she can think of, anything Mark can request that she knows. Disco, obviously, emo rock like Fall Out Boy, all the top 40 hits they can remember, and yes, all the sea shanties Melissa knows as a serving member of the United States Navy. 

Melissa teaches Mark the words to Drunken Sailor and Anchors Aweigh, of course, but the one she ends up singing the most is Spanish Ladies, late at night when they’re driving under a sky with billion of stars in it, a stark and desolate landscape around them. 

“Spanish Ladies again?” Melissa asks one night with a smile, glancing over at Mark. “And here I thought you’d be requesting the songs about pirates and pieces of eight, not this one.”

Mark’s lounging in his seat, and he glances over at her and shrugs. “What can I say, I like hearing you sing it.”

Melissa smiles. Truthfully, she loves singing it, so it’s not exactly a hardship. And so she starts to sing, slow and sweet, as they drive through the darkness. 

“And we’ll drink and be merry, and drown melancholy, here’s to the health of each true-hearted lass…”

*

The trip through Acidalia Planitia and Mawrth Vallis has been fairly straightforward--gentle terrain, low elevation. A breeze to get through. 

The trip through Arabia Terra, which is between them and Schiaparelli, is going to be anything but. The terrain will be hell with all the craters they’ll have to navigate around, but it’s manageable. Or specifically, it’ll have to be manageable, because they have no choice but to push on through, hopefully without crashing the rover along the way. 

Really, it’s hell. Not least of which is that as a geologist, Melissa would love to spend weeks here, studying the terrain--except she can’t, she’s got to get through this place as quickly as the rover permits so they can get to Schiaparelli on time, and make the modifications to the Ares 4 MAV that’ll be needed.

“You know,” Mark says one day while he’s helping her collect samples, “if you sigh any louder, they’ll be able to hear you back on Earth.”

“I’m not sighing,” Melissa corrects him, a little grimly. 

“You are in your head,” Mark says, and he’s not wrong. 

Melissa shakes her head, looking about her. “There’s enough data here for me to study for ten lifetimes. Countless papers that I could write.” She pauses and then confides, “And all I can think of when I look at it all is how much I _hate_ this planet, and want to get off it as soon as possible.”

Mark has paused in his task, and even though the glare of the sun means she can’t see his face inside his helmet, she can hear his grin as he says, “Why, Commander. Has Mars finally broken you?”

“It has not broken me,” Melissa insists, but the rant is building. They’re so close, they’ve been here so fucking long, and for fuck’s sake, Melissa never wants to eat a potato again. Ever. She’d rather set an entire field of potato plants on fire than eat one again. “What I’m saying is,” she stops, and starts again, “What I’m saying is that...is that I hate this fucking planet. I hate it. I hate every goddamned inch of it right now.”

“There you go, let it out,” Mark encourages her, waving his hands as though to beckon her on. 

“I hate that rover that we’re stuck in every day, I hate these craters, I know I’m gonna hate whatever they’ll have us do to the MAV when we get to Schiaparelli, I...you know what?” Melissa says, breathing heavily. “Fuck this planet. Fuck _every single speck_ of dirt on it.”

Mark slowly claps, and Melissa dismissively waves her hand at him, biting her cheek hard before she says anything else. Picking up on her mood, Mark asks, “You need a minute?”

Melissa puts her hand on her hips and breathes in deeply, in and out. “Yeah. Give me a minute, okay?”

“Yeah,” Mark says, and his voice is so steady and calm. “Anything you need, okay?”

Melissa closes her eyes, and nods before she remembers that he can’t see her, so she gives him a thumbs-up instead.

Once they’re back in the rover, Mark doesn’t move to put on a rerun of Sanford and Son, which is the TV show they’re working through this week. He just lies down next to her in their makeshift bedroom--which they’ve both taken to calling their rat’s nest--and says after a moment, “Tell me something you haven’t told me yet.”

Melissa shakes her head a little, her throat strangely tight. “I’ve told you all the stories I have.”

“No, you haven’t,” Mark says, and she turns her face away from him a little, away from the endless compassion in his voice, that voice that has been her constant companion for over a year on this planet. “Come on, Melissa. Tell me something new.”

Melissa licks her dry lips, and she thinks, and finally she smiles. Turning back to Mark, a small smile on her face, she said, “You’ve never really asked about how I got into disco.”

The slow-dawning smile on Mark’s face is truly the best thing she has seen all day. “I figure it was like the love of God, it passeth all understanding.” As Melissa laughs, Mark says, “No, but you said one of your moms got you into it, right?”

“Yeah,” Melissa confirms. “My moms adopted me when I was six. When I first came to live with them, I don’t think I said more than five words altogether for the first month.”

Mark is quiet now, just listening to her speak, and it feels so easy to tell him this story. It took months of dating Robert before Melissa told him the more painful details of her childhood, she’s just not the type to easily share her past, but this is...easy.

“And then one Saturday morning, Mama was making pancakes in the kitchen and the stereo was playing, and this song came on. Love Train by the O’Jays. Mama starts to sing a little and I just--” Melissa smiles at the memory, “I start to hum the melody along with her. Then I start to sing, just real quiet at first, but--”

“You got louder,” Mark finishes.

Melissa chuckles. “Oh yeah. By the time Mom got downstairs, we were dancing around the kitchen like giant dorks, singing at the top of our lungs.”

For just a moment, Melissa can visualize the memory so well that she might as well be there in that kitchen, lit up with warm morning sunshine, her new parents dancing and laughing together--and her younger self, feeling safe and happy, just basking in the feeling of being loved.

“It’s the first really good childhood memory I’ve got,” Melissa admits after a moment, dropping her gaze to Mark’s chest, watching the rise and fall of it as he breathes. “So that’s where the disco love started.”

“Not a bad place for it to start,” Mark says, and when Melissa looks up, his face is full of affection, his gaze so soft and kind. 

Melissa hesitates a moment, then rests her fingers on the curve of Mark’s cheek, very lightly. “Thanks.”

Mark’s eyes briefly flutter shut as she touches him. When he opens his eyes again, he gives her a small smile. “You never need to thank me for anything,” he says, his voice rough. “Okay?”

“Yeah,” Melissa breathes out, the last of the day’s tension leaving her body. “Yeah, okay.”

*

It’s not until they get to Schiaparelli and commandeer the MAV that Melissa and Mark discover NASA’s plan for launching them into space. 

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking shitting me,” Melissa says at last, and it’s a measure of how stunned Mark is that he doesn’t even smile at Melissa’s rare use of profanity. 

“They want us to take off the _front of the ship_ ,” he says, in tones of deep and profound disbelief. 

“Uh huh,” Melissa says. 

“They want us to launch ourselves into space--”

“Nope, Martinez is going to launch us,” Melissa corrects him.

Mark turns to her, a little wild-eyed, and says, “Oh, right, can’t forget that piece of madness. So they want _Martinez_ to launch us into space with a ship that has no front.”

“Yeah, that’s what I’m reading on the screen,” Melissa says.

“Oh, fuck me,” Mark mutters, scrubbing at his face with his hands. 

“That just about sums it up,” Melissa says.

But they’re astronauts who obey the orders they’re given--and more to the point, they certainly can’t come up with a better solution themselves, so Melissa and Mark get to work on thoroughly and completely cannibalizing the MAV for their eventual launch. 

Mark gets into the habit of loudly and tunelessly singing She Works Hard For The Money every time Melissa takes apart another once-critical part of the MAV, and Melissa breaks into a smile every time he does. “Do us all a favor, Mark--stick to the botany and engineering, okay?”

Mark laughs over the comm, and says, “Hey, it’s not every astronaut that gets an offer for a record deal.”

“Ugh, don’t even talk to me,” Melissa groans. NASA, once they’d reestablished contact with the stronger connection of the MAV, had started releasing the video logs back on Earth to the public. During yesterday’s email updates, NASA had seen fit to inform them that Melissa’s rendition of Spanish Ladies had been set to music by some folk group and was now climbing up the charts. 

_It’ll be the number one streamed song by tomorrow, they’re telling us,_ Vincent had written out. _So should you be looking for another career change, Commander, just know the record labels will welcome you with open arms._

Melissa had read that email, then she’d immediately turned to Mark’s grinning face and ordered, “Not a single _word_ , Watney.”

He hadn’t listened, of course. Not that Melissa had ever expected him to.

*

It’s their last night on Mars, and neither of them can sleep. They’ve done everything that’s needed to be done, modified and cannibalized the MAV until it was a hollowed-out shell of what it once was, and with luck and NASA’s best minds behind them, tomorrow they’ll be onboard the _Hermes_ once more. 

Or possibly dead, their bodies doomed to either be incinerated in a fiery explosion, or to orbit Mars for all eternity if the intercept with the _Hermes_ goes wrong. 

It’s the helplessness that has Melissa’s stomach twisting in on itself, the knowledge that once she’s strapped into that MAV across from Mark, there is literally nothing she can do. Either this works or it doesn’t, either they die or they live. After a year and a half of the two of them surviving on their wits, it’s enough to have Melissa grinding her teeth.

So that’s bad enough, but when Melissa thinks of _Mark_ dying, Mark’s body being incinerated, Mark’s corpse floating around Mars...well. The thought is honestly so unbearable that Melissa’s entire body wants to seize up in something perilously close to panic. 

The two of them are picking at the last rations they have, not saying much, when Mark sets his utensils down. “Commander,” he says, his voice solemn, and Melissa slowly sets down her own tray. 

“Mark,” she says, swallowing hard. Her meal’s sitting like a rock in her stomach.

Mark’s gripping the fork so hard his knuckles are white. “Look, I just wanted to say, before tomorrow--”

“Mark, stop,” Melissa says, resting her hands on top of his. Mark looks up at her, his lips parted, his eyes dark. 

Melissa exhales. Her throat is tight and her eyes are stinging, but somehow she smiles at him. Because he deserves nothing else. “Mark,” Melissa says, smiling through her blurred vision. “It has been an honor, and a privilege.”

There are no jokes, no easy quips in response to that, just Mark’s blue eyes staring into her face for what feels like an eternity before he leans in, resting his forehead against hers. “Yeah,” Mark says, his voice choked up. “Yeah, likewise.”

Melissa rubs her thumb along his knuckles, and doesn’t say another word. Not then, and not for the rest of the night as they curl up together in the rover, their hands linked between them. 

*

It’s four minutes to the launch, and Rick Martinez’s voice is in their ears, and Melissa’s smiling so hard her face hurts. 

“Good to hear your voice, Major,” she says, and if there’s a tear trickling down her cheek, nobody has to know about it. Melissa and Mark are strapped in together on the MAV, their backs to each other, tethers linking them so that when Beck comes to fetch them during the intercept, he won’t need to waste any precious time corralling them both. 

“Right back at you, Commander,” Martinez says, and she can hear him smiling. “Mark, how’re you doing there, buddy?”

“Doing just fine,” Mark says, his voice thick. “For the record, uh--thanks for coming back to get us.”

“What can I say?” Martinez says, chuckling over the comm. “We were in the neighborhood.”

It’s an awful, ridiculous joke, and it makes the both of them laugh shakily.

“Okay, just remember,” Martinez is saying now, “--you’ll both be pulling some pretty heavy g’s, so it’s all right if you pass out. You’re in my hands now, no need to worry.”

“Hey asshole, no barrel rolls,” Mark calls back, and Melissa barely stifles another laugh. 

“Copy that.”

And in what feels like the blink of an eye, Johanssen is counting down over the comms. “T-minus ten...nine...eight--”

“Hang on, Mark, okay?” Melissa says, and even if her voice is a quiet whisper, she knows that the whole world is hearing it.

“Melissa,” Mark starts, his voice cracking with emotion, but then the MAV is rumbling, and with a roar they’re airborne, not able to breathe or move as the surface of Mars falls away beneath them. 

*

In the months and years following the Ares 3 mission, historians and scientists will debate and discuss every second of the Rich Purnell maneuver. They’ll go over the math, the length of the trip, debate whether it was courage or guilt that led to the _Hermes_ crew saying they wanted to return to Mars.

There is a significant minority that places credence in the never-ending rumors of a mutiny onboard the _Hermes_ , the idea that the crew forced NASA’s hand when it came to attempting the Rich Purnell Maneuver, rather than using the _Taiyang Shen_ to launch another probe with a higher probability of failure. 

One fact that is obvious and therefore not discussed--had the canvas covering the roof of the MAV not held together as long as it had, the intercept would’ve failed.

*

Melissa slowly drifts into consciousness with an ache in her chest that only gets worse as she opens her eyes. “Mm,” she groans, blinking blearily around her before she’s able to make sense of her surroundings, the still-intact canvas covering the roof, the MAV, Mars’ crater pocked surface stretching out below them. 

“Jesus,” Melissa says, wincing as she accidentally tries to breathe in too deeply. “Mark?”

“Commander?” Mark calls back. “You with me?”

“Yeah,” Melissa says, breathing heavily as she tries to reach for the controls on her arms to activate her radio, and wincing when the motion jars what must be an injured rib. “MAV to...to _Hermes_.”

“Commander?!”

“Affirmative,” Melissa says. Her chest is so tight, and she can’t even out her breathing. 

“What’s your status?” Martinez asks. 

“We’re on...on a ship with no...control panel,” Melissa says, gritting her teeth. “Broke a rib...I think. Mark?”

“I’m all right,” Mark says. “Busted a rib too, I think. Commander, you don’t sound right, are you sure you’re fine?”

“No, I’m--” Melissa draws in another painful breath. “I’m fine, just...just a little...chest pain.” It’s not just a little, but she’ll be damned before she says so out loud. She knew the risks; a cracked or broken rib is hardly a surprise. “What’s the status?” She gets that sentence out in a rush, and closes her eyes as she tries to get in enough air afterwards.

Johanssen comes in now. “We’re twenty-three minutes away from intercept, relative velocity of twelve meters per second, which is doable for Beck.”

“Good, that’s…” Melissa takes another pained breath, knowing how it sounds but unable to stop. “That’s good.”

She should’ve known Mark wouldn’t let it slide, and of course he doesn’t. “Commander, I’m sorry, you just don’t sound fine to me,” he insists. “Beck, you hearing this? It’s like she can’t breathe properly.”

“Commander, just say a full sentence for me if you can,” Beck says. 

“Both of you...can stop...worrying,” Melissa tries, but it’s no use, it’s impossible for her not to pause every couple of words, the pressure in her chest is--

“I think you’ve got a collapsed lung,” Beck’s saying now. “I can fix that, but the sooner we get you on board and in sickbay the better.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Mark mutters.

“I’m fine,” Melissa sighs out, biting back a wince as she accidentally shifts her torso. 

Melissa isn’t even a little surprised when Mark immediately snaps back, “You’re _not_ fine, can you even hear yourself right now, the way you’re wheezing?”

“No wheezing,” Melissa manages to get out. God, this chest pain sucks. “Just some...dramatic...pauses.”

“Dramatic pauses,” Mark says, his voice thick with sarcasm and poorly-concealed worry. “You’re killing me right now, you know that?”

“Impressive...if I did,” Melissa says, unable to resist the opening. “Given how...you survived...Mars.”

Martinez laughs over the comms. “God, and you people complain about my jokes,” he says. “Look, just hang tight, okay? We’ve got twenty minutes until intercept, all signs are looking good--”

He’s cut off when Melissa starts to cough. Not some delicate, subtle affair, either; these are racking coughs that shake Melissa’s entire body and set her chest on _fire_ , and once the coughing fit is finally, mercifully over, Melissa is left gasping for breath, unable to speak.

“Beck, status report,” Martinez is snapping out now, and Beck’s reporting that her O2 saturation is down, her heart rate has increased, and her blood pressure’s decreased, and it all boils down to what Melissa already knows: she’s not in good shape right now. 

“We’ll get a chest tube in her once she’s safely on board,” Beck says. “It sounds bad, I know, but we’ve still likely got over an hour before we need to worry about organ failure.”

“Organ failure?” Johanssen repeats faintly, and Melissa’s pretty sure she hears Vogel muttering in dismay, but his mouth must be at an angle where the comms don’t pick it up entirely. Or he’s talking in German.

“Have I mentioned yet how much I hate that fucking planet?” Mark asks, vehement. “Because I really--”

“Mark,” Melissa says, and he abruptly falls silent, as if she flipped a switch. For a stretch, there’s nothing but the sound of her wheezing faintly, and then Melissa says, “Ask if...if they have...any eyeliner.”

“Eyeliner?” Johanssen repeats, and thankfully, Mark explains, sounding calmer now, “The commander’s just getting back at me for giving her shit about her unfortunate disco addiction.”

“Ah yes,” Vogel says, mercifully picking up the rest of the slack. “We’ve heard quite a lot about this. Although I think perhaps Mark’s musical tastes are worse, yes? At least from what I’ve heard of these bands he likes so much.”

“Hey,” Mark says, faux-outraged now. “Those bands were the soundtrack to my adolescence, okay?”

“Yes, but none of them looked like they ever washed their hair,” Vogel says, in clear distaste, and Melissa snorts and immediately regrets it, as her chest flares with even more pain.

“He...loves Donna Summer now,” Melissa confides to the crew. “ _Loves_ her.”

“I cannot abide this slander,” Mark says over the crew’s laughter, which sounds only a little bit forced. But then Mark asks, as if he can’t help himself, “Beck, how are the commander’s stats looking?”

“They’re mostly acceptable,” Beck says, after only the smallest pause. “Considering the circumstances.”

“Fucking hell,” Mark mutters to himself again, and if Melissa could reach out for him she would. “Listen,” he says now, sounding determined, “Let me at least try and get the canvas off the MAV--it’ll mean less wasted time for Beck on the intercept.”

“No,” Melissa says. 

“Commander--”

“I said… _no_.” Melissa’s not going to let Mark fly around in this MAV unstrapped a second before she has to.

“I’ve got a tool with me, Mark, I can cut through the canvas if I need to,” Beck says. 

“Fourteen minutes to intercept,” Johanssen says, and Martinez breaks in, asking, “How you feeling there, Commander?”

“Fine,” Melissa says, keeping it brief--mostly so she won’t give herself away by gasping between words like a fish flopping around on dry land. 

And she is fine. Even if the pressure in her chest feels like it’s getting worse, and she can feel Mark’s anxiety about her well-being like a physical weight.

“How...are the Cubs?”

Martinez, God bless the man, immediately picks up on her gambit. “They’re a disaster like always. Look, Watney, I know you’re from Chicago and all, and therefore basically screwed, but you could at least pick a team to root for that’s won something in the last few years. Like the White Sox.”

Melissa grins. Trust Martinez to go there in order to keep Mark distracted. Melissa once spent an entire day in the Hab listening to Mark vehemently denouncing the Chicago White Sox and all their works--including the World Series they’d won back in 2033.

“That is so typical of you that you would go there,” Mark says hotly, and Melissa lies back in her chair, careful not to jar her ribs--or collapsed lung--any more than is necessary, taking shallow breaths as she listens to Mark and Martinez comfortably rant about baseball, before coming to the conclusion that no one is worse than the Cardinals. 

And finally, as Melissa’s chest pain gets worse and her mind gets more clouded, Johanssen is mercifully saying, “Two minutes to intercept.”

And then Beck is leaping out of the airlock and calling out, his voice filled with excitement, “I have visual on the MAV!” A brief pause and then he’s asking, “All due respect, Commander but Jesus, what did you _do_ to this thing?”

“You should see what we did to the rover,” Mark replies. 

“A rat’s nest,” Melissa murmurs. It makes sense to say that in the moment, but later she’ll hear the audio and understand why Beck immediately asks, “Commander? You all right?”

“Mm hmm,” Melissa says. Actual words just seem like so much effort.

There’s more words, Johanssen calling out the relative velocity at regular intervals, and then there’s a hole in the canvas and Chris Beck is peering down at them both, his face breaking out into a smile as he calls out to the _Hermes_ , to Mission Control, to all of Earth, “I have visual on Commander Lewis and Watney!”

His smile fades a little bit as he comes into the MAV, getting a closer look at Melissa’s face inside her helmet. “Okay, Commander, I’m hooking onto you, okay? Just stay with us here.”

“Can’t go...anywhere,” Melissa points out, fumbling with the straps on her chair. Beck tugs her hands away, and locks onto the front of her suit with his tether locks. Mark’s also connected to Melissa’s suit with a tether, so the plan is for all three of them to be pulled back into the _Hermes_. 

“And we’re out of here,” Beck’s saying, as he smoothly guides them all out of the MAV, and then they’re floating through space, on their way onboard the _Hermes_. 

“Huh,” Melissa says as she catches sight of Vogel, as they’re reeled into Airlock 2, as they are officially onboard the _Hermes_ and free of Mars at last. “How about that.”

Dimly, she listens as Martinez says to all of Earth, “Houston, this is _Hermes_ Actual. Six crew safely aboard.” 

*

Once they’ve repressurized the airlock, things start moving very quickly. Melissa is still standing on her feet, but her coordination is for shit right now, she can’t seem to think past her whirling brain and the increasing agony in her chest, so Beck and Vogel take over getting her out of her suit. “ _Mein Gott,”_ Vogel mutters, his face twisting, and Melissa mumbles, “Sorry...smell.”

Her vision’s really blurred right now, she should probably mention that to Beck. 

“We’ve got bigger problems than the smell,” Beck’s snapping out in a low voice as he helps Melissa step out of the bottom half of her suit. “Her lips are turning blue. God _dammit_.”

“What does that mean?” Mark demands loudly. “Beck!”

“Just follow us, okay?” Beck orders, and the next thing Melissa knows, she’s being hustled through the ship towards the sickbay, Martinez and Johanssen’s faces a blur to the side, Mark’s voice behind her, too far away for comfort, and Melissa calls back, “Mark...Mark--”

“Look,” she hears Mark saying, “Just let me _get_ to her--”

“I need you to lie down for me, okay, Commander?” Beck says as they get to the sickbay, and Melissa stares at the cot and thinks woozily that standing upright would be a much harder ask right now.

Gritting her teeth against the pain as she lies down, Melissa blearily tries to track Beck--God, but he’s running around a lot. Dragging air into her lungs as best as she can, Melissa says, her voice a hoarse rasp, “Where’s...Mark?”

“He’s coming, trust me,” Beck promises, and yes--Mark’s in the room now, followed by the rest of the crew, Martinez saying, “I need a status report for Mission Control, they’re going nuts right now.”

“Tell them I’m doing a needle thoracotomy,” Beck says, and there’s the sound of the shears cutting away Melissa’s filthy shirt, exposing her skin to the cool air in the room. She hears someone gasp at the sight of her wasted body, probably Johanssen. 

Suddenly, there’s a warm hand holding hers, and Melissa doesn’t need to turn her head to know it’s Mark. She turns anyway, because she wants to see his face, even if it’s too thin and pinched with worry.

She’d tell him it’s all right, they’ve been rescued, but her brain doesn’t seem to want to work right now. 

“Mark, I can’t have you in the way,” Beck’s saying over her, and Melissa reflexively grips Mark’s hand harder, and Mark replies, “Good, because I won’t be in the way.”

Beck lets out a breath as he turns to Melissa. “Commander, this is going to hurt quite a bit, but you’ll be feeling better really soon, okay?”

Melissa makes herself dip her chin in assent, and then Beck is saying to Johanssen, “Cut the feed for a second, we don’t need everyone hearing this.”

What he means is, they don’t need Mission Control and the entire world hearing Melissa cry out in pain as Beck slides a needle in between her ribs, but then, incredibly, the pain is decreasing, and Melissa can actually _breathe_ again.

Closing her eyes, she gulps in air, only half-listening as Mark angrily demands, “Jesus, you couldn’t have medicated her before doing that?” 

Still breathing in deeply, Melissa hears Beck reply, “There wasn’t enough time for that. Now that she’s stabilized, I can give her some morphine before inserting the chest tube.”

“Hmm,” Melissa says to herself. “Chest tube.” She draws the words out, and distantly, she can hear Johanssen asking, “Uh, why is she still out of it?”

“Oxygen deprivation,” Beck explains, sounding a little weary. “Give her a minute or two to come back.”

Melissa is mercifully doped up for the chest tube insertion, but Mark still refuses to let go of her hand the entire time. Or Melissa won’t let go of his hand. It amounts to the same thing, really.

*

“You know Beck’s not going to like this, right?” Mark says after a few minutes of watching Melissa slowly walk on the treadmill. 

“He said I needed to keep active now that the chest tube is out,” she tosses over her shoulder. And if her chest occasionally twinges, Melissa’s willing to write that off as the costs of healing.

“I don’t think the treadmill is what he had in mind,” Mark points out, and Melissa waves him off and keeps going.

Of course, Beck tracks her down not ten minutes later. “Commander, what are you doing?”

Melissa looks over at Mark and says, without heat, “Snitch.” As Mark shrugs, Melissa says to Beck, “I’m going for a walk, per your suggestion.”

“I never said you were supposed to overwork yourself by going on the treadmill,” Beck insists, and Mark laughs as he says, “No, she got that idea on her own.”

If they were alone, Melissa probably would give him the finger; as it is, she just glares at him. 

Beck gives her a look that reminds Melissa of nothing so much as her mom, who’s been wrangling second-graders for over forty years. “Commander.”

Melissa ends up getting off the treadmill. Instead of going back to her quarters so she can stare at the bulkheads, she ends up going to talk to Martinez. 

He’s working on his tablet in the cockpit, although he quickly puts it aside as she approaches. “Hey, Commander. How are you feeling?”

“Fine,” Melissa says, ignoring the twinge from her ribs as she settles into the seat next to him. “Beck kicked me off the treadmill, but other than that, I’m okay.”

Martinez snorts, just as she’d meant him to. “You know he says you’re one of the worst patients he’s ever seen?”

“I prefer to think of myself as challenging,” Melissa says lightly, and Martinez snickers. His smile fades a little after a moment, and he asks, “So, what did you want to talk to me about?”

Melissa pauses a little before answering, folding her hands together in her lap as she says, “I wanted to talk to you about Sol 18.”

Martinez’s shoulders straighten, his expression going grave. “Okay.”

Melissa exhales. She wishes it didn’t have to be said, she wishes that her reply to the uncharacteristically stiff email Martinez had first sent her months ago would’ve been enough to lighten Martinez’s guilt.

She knows better than that, of course, but the wish still lingers.

“I gave you orders that day, you followed them,” Melissa says quietly, her voice as even and steady as a drum. “There’s no shame in that.”

Martinez’s mouth twists, and he looks away as he says, his voice low and full of bitterness, “I left you behind to die. There’s plenty of shame in that, trust me.”

“You left me behind so that you could save four lives, including your own,” Melissa says, firm. Martinez is still looking away from her, and Melissa insists, “Rick. There was no way for any of us to know that Mark was alive, and there was no way for you to get to me before the MAV tipped. I gave you the order to go because it was the only option left.”

He knows that. Of course he knows that. Melissa is still aware that he needs to hear it out loud, and from her, before he has a chance of ever believing it.

“I prayed for your forgiveness,” Martinez says, and when he finally looks up at her, his eyes are wet. “I prayed that God would forgive me for what I did, and that you’d forgive me too.”

“Well, I won’t presume to speak for God,” Melissa says, smiling a little past the lump in her throat. “But there’s nothing to forgive, so far as I’m concerned. There never has been.”

*

Adjusting to live on the _Hermes_ is a task easier said than accomplished. It should feel easy, natural, they spent years training together, preparing for just this journey--although not in these exact circumstances. Coming back should’ve been like slipping into an old glove. 

It hasn’t quite worked out that way. There’s still the crew’s lingering guilt over leaving the two of them behind, of course, and then there’s Mark and Melissa, and the ways they haven’t adjusted to not being on Mars, not yet. 

It’s the quiet of the _Hermes_ that gets to her, the stillness of it. She misses the background noises of the HAB, even the sounds of the wind blowing outside--and now the _Hermes_ is so quiet that ironically, Melissa can’t sleep in the oppressive silence, not in her tiny quarters that still feel too wide, not when there’s no one else--

But this isn’t Mars. They should be adjusting to their new reality, Melissa shouldn’t wish for a route back to the way things used to be. Even if she’s having trouble sleeping. Even if every time she wakes, she’s disoriented, still automatically reaching out for someone that isn’t there. She can’t let herself ask for something Mark can’t offer, not anymore.

It’s Beck who gives Melissa the opening, however, mentioning casually during her daily weigh-ins, “You know, Mark’s been having some difficulty sleeping.”

“Oh?” Melissa says, shrugging into her sweatshirt. She’s favored baggier clothing ever since coming back to the _Hermes_ ; it makes her dramatic weight loss just a little less obvious. 

“Yeah, I keep offering him sleeping aids, but he’s not biting.” Looking up, Melissa finds Beck watching her steadily. “Thought you might talk to him?”

“Of course,” Melissa says. And she does, approaching Mark in the gym where he’s carefully walking on the treadmill--with Beck’s approval, she’s sure. He turns to look at her with a smile as he approaches, and Melissa smiles back. “Look, I’ve progressed to a slow crawl,” Mark says. “I’ll be running a marathon in no time.” He tilts his head a second, and asks next, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Melissa says, but asks next, “Can we talk for a second?”

Mark’s eyebrows flick upwards, but he obliges, turning the treadmill off and going to one of the small chairs set up in the gym. “What is it?”

Melissa pauses for a moment before speaking. Despite her best efforts, there’s this divide in her head--how she’d ask this question as Melissa, and how she would’ve approached it as Mark’s commander, before they were ever stranded on Mars, back when that storm was a blip on the radar screen. So when she says, “Beck says you’re not sleeping,” it comes out blunter, harsher, than she means it to.

Mark’s mouth twists a little bit, and he looks down, away from her. “Yeah, I suppose. Nothing too bad, just get a little restless at night.”

It’s not just that, and they both know it. Even if Beck hadn’t brought it up, Melissa knows Mark too well for him to lie to her, too well for her to take the role of the sympathetic commanding officer, measured and kind, but still remote. She could’ve done it before, and done it well, but now--they’re miles past that. A year and a half past that. 

Melissa can’t go back to that, but going forward, now, standing here in the _Hermes_ is just--it feels impossible almost, to speak the truth. The words are sticking in her throat, but all Melissa can think is if she can't tell Mark this, she can't tell him anything real anymore, and the idea of that is suddenly unbearable to her.

So she takes in a deep breath, and says it. "It's okay. I've been having trouble sleeping too." Mark's eyes flicker back up when she says that, and Melissa exhales as she admits the rest. "I keep--I keep reaching out for you, in the middle of the night. And I'm always surprised when you're not there."

Mark's face is so open right now that it might as well be made of glass. "Yeah. Yeah, I keep--" He stops and shakes his head. "This is gonna sound really creepy, so I apologize, but...whenever I had a nightmare, and woke up in the middle of the night in the Hab, I'd...stroke your hair sometimes. Just to, to orient myself again."

Melissa smiles at him, gently. "You thought I was sleeping," she corrects. "I always knew, I never minded it."

A flush spreads across Mark's cheeks. "Oh. Well...okay, then."

Melissa can't help the grin that curves her mouth upwards, as she says dryly, "If I knew saying something was going to make you blush this hard, I would've mentioned it earlier."

Mark's blush only deepens at that, right before he drops his head into his hands, groaning. "You know, given that you're the redhead here, I really think it's unfair that I'm always the one blushing."

"When I find something to be embarrassed about, I'll let you know," Melissa says loftily, and Mark raises his head back up, grinning as he asks, "Would you, please?" 

His grin fades to a smaller, softer smile after a moment, and he finally asks, "So what now?"

Melissa looks down at her hands, flexes her fingers. "We could just become roommates again." Mark is silent, and Melissa looks up, makes herself say the rest. "Beck's willing to prescribe sleeping aids, but--I'd prefer to try this first. If you don't want to--"

"No, it's a good idea," Mark says. "I just--are you sure?" He puts the faintest stress on ‘you’, and Melissa lifts her shoulders, not dismissing the question, but acknowledging that it's there, that appearances could be an issue.

"We spent a year and a half together on Mars, I think people already expect us to be...weird about each other," she says. From the way the crew pointedly _doesn't_ pay any attention to Melissa's interactions with Mark, she'd bet money that Martinez has already had words with them about it. "And given what's going on with Beck and Johanssen--"

"So you _do_ know about that," Mark says, sounding delighted. "I kept saying you had to, but Martinez and Vogel weren't sure."

Melissa gives him her best unimpressed look. "Mark, please, I called it before we even landed on Mars. The point is...we're all in glass houses here, so far as the appearance of impropriety goes." Or worse, if Melissa's suspicions about the Rich Purnell maneuver are proven correct. But that's a conversation for a different time, and Melissa finishes with, "I think...I think the goal of this mission now is for everyone to get home in one piece. I'm not too worried about how we accomplish that. Are you?"

Mark shakes his head, his smile lighting up his face. “No, I’m not worried.”

*

Everyone’s reactions to Mark moving his things to Melissa’s quarters are incredibly...non-reactive. Very much in the “oh, this is happening” vein. If Melissa wasn’t sure before that Martinez had given a quiet lecture to the crew about letting their weird behavior slide, she’s convinced of it now. 

Melissa would worry about it more, but frankly, she has enough on her plate that she’s grateful for the let-off. Particularly at that first morning after Mark moves in, where Melissa wakes up from the first decent rest she’s had in days, Mark’s body a warm, grounding weight against hers, his face relaxed and open in sleep. 

That private time with Mark in her quarters--their quarters, now--quickly becomes the easiest, most joyful part of Melissa’s days. The rest isn’t bad, exactly, it’s just...work. She’s still figuring out how to slip into her place among the crew, figuring out how to approach experiments that are no longer a life-or-death matter, the way they were back on Mars. But even that’s easier than dealing with the constant media requests from NASA’s PR department--Melissa doesn’t want to appear on camera when she's so severely underweight, and has mostly managed to fend them off with audio messages and written emails, but that won’t last forever.

But even that’s easier than dealing with the private emails and messages from her family. 

It had been fine on Mars. Every message there had been a gift, a reminder there was something beyond that planet, beyond the red sand and the constant threat of death looming over them both. Back then Melissa knew what to do, what to say, how to project a version of herself that was fine, that was surviving, that was still her family’s daughter, sister, wife. 

Now Melissa can take as long as an hour, or even two, to write a brief paragraph of an email to her parents, her brother. Now when Robert sends her a video message, Melissa can stare at the frozen image of his handsome face, his warm smile, and she feels--

“It’s like there’s a canyon,” Melissa confesses quietly to Mark late one night. They’re tucked in together underneath the blanket, Mark still smelling faintly of soap from his shower that night. “A canyon between where he is, our marriage, our lives together...and on the other side, there’s me. This me, the person that I am now.” She turns her face into the pillow, and says after a moment, “I just--it’s strange, feeling like that. I never have before.”

Mark’s quiet at first, then he says gently, “I don’t think he’d expect you to be exactly the person you were before you left. That’s impossible. Even if we hadn’t been stranded, that would be impossible.”

“I know,” Melissa says with a sigh. “I know, it’s ridiculous.”

“I didn’t say that,” Mark says. “Just...maybe give him more credit.”

Melissa looks up at Mark and doesn’t say what she’s thinking, which is that if she can’t explain her relationship to Mark now--and she’s tried, in a dozen email drafts that are never sent--then she has no idea how to explain the rest of it. 

But that’s a thought that feels suddenly dangerous, with Mark’s blue eyes on her face, their legs tangled together in this bed that they share. So Melissa smiles, and changes the subject, asking with a smile, “How weirded out are you that our parents are all suddenly best friends now?”

Mark laughs. “According to my mom, I’d better get used to it--I’ve got another set of parents now, as far as she’s concerned. She’s thrilled to have extra backup the next time I do something ridiculous.”

“Like getting trapped on Mars for a year and a half?” Melissa asks with a laugh of her own. She already likes Mark’s mother, who has sent her funny, heartfelt emails praising Melissa to the skies for, as she’d termed it, “surviving my son’s terrible taste in bands and his awful humor, which sadly he inherited from me”. 

“Nah, she’s already used to that,” Mark says, and they both burst out laughing, and the moment--whatever it was--passes.

*

Melissa tries. Of course she tries. She sends video messages back to her parents, smiling in the likely vain hope that if she does, they might not notice the thinness of her body, her still-hollow cheeks. She asks her brother about his job, his fiancee, tells him not to worry about the press that still hounds them for interviews. She tells her family that she loves them, can’t wait to see them all when she gets home.

And Melissa writes to her husband. She tells him about the crew, Martinez recounting _Goodfellas_ for Mark and Johanssen at mealtimes, Johanssen because she’s never seen it and Mark because he’ll join in on Martinez’s awful impressions. She reassures Robert that she’s following all of Beck’s recommendations and orders when it comes to her health. 

After a brief pause, she elects to write to Robert about something that’s bothered her the last few days. _You know about my bad habit of singing to myself, she types out. I hadn’t done it since before I was at the Naval Academy, but I fell back into the habit on Mars, and I still can’t shake it now I’m back on board the Hermes. Vogel caught me at it the other day, singing over soil samples for God’s sake. I must have been beet red and I was stiff as a board. He apologized for startling me, and I don’t think he’s even mentioned it to the crew, but I’m still embarrassed. Mortified, really. Not over the music, of course, it’s that I--_

Melissa pauses for a moment, flexing her fingers over the keyboard before continuing.

_\--it’s that I forgot myself. Regular Melissa can sing over her experiments like an ordinary dork that loves disco, but Commander Lewis is supposed to have more gravitas than that. Back on Mars it was different, and I just haven’t re-adjusted yet._

_Mark says--_ Melissa bites at her lip, but keeps going, _Mark says that my cover was already blown ages ago, that nobody becomes an astronaut without a) being a giant dork and b) being more than a little nuts. He’s right, of course, and God knows I’ve caught the crew at worse. Still, I blush every time I’m reminded of it, and you know how I hate blushing._

_Mark says hello, by the way. He hopes you’ve discovered some new finds for our vinyl collection. I’ve already promised to play him our Donna Summer records when we get back. He swears he’s not interested, at least when we’re in earshot of the crew, but I know better._

_I love you, babe, always. I can’t wait to get home._

“You never minded when I caught you singing,” Mark says when she mentions it later that night, climbing into bed next to him. “Not after the first time, anyway.”

“Well, that was different,” Melissa points out, settling her head against the pillow. 

“How was that any different?” Mark asks, and Melissa gives him an exasperated look. 

“Come on, you know it was.”

Mark snorts, but doesn’t press for more, instead asking, “So what song did he catch you singing?”

Melissa groans. “He caught me busting out with some Gloria Gaynor, okay?”

Mark’s eyebrows shoot up, and he starts grinning at her. “Okay, is it the song I'm thinking of?” At Melissa’s pointed silence, he starts to chuckle. “You are a walking cliche right now, I hope you realize that.”

“A cliche is just a classic that's become famous,” Melissa says dismissively. Mark, surprisingly, doesn’t have an immediate retort to that, and Melissa looks over at him, suspicious.

One look at Mark’s face, and Melissa realizes what he's waiting for. “Nope, not a chance.” Mark doesn't say anything, just continues to watch her in anticipation, and Melissa says, “My days as the human jukebox are over, Mark.”

Still nothing but that anticipatory silence. At last Melissa groans and gives in. “Fine, but keep the applause to a minimum, I don't need anyone else eavesdropping on this today.”

Mark beams and makes a show of settling into the bed, waiting, and Melissa kicks her voice up half an octave as she sings, “First I was afraid, I was petrified...Kept thinking I could never live without you by my side…”

Mark, the asshole, actually does clap once she’s finished. After Melissa’s punched him in the shoulder, he laughs. Rubbing the sore spot, he says, “No, really, it’s just that I’ve...you know, I’ve missed hearing you sing all the time.”

“Oh, this from the man who complained every time I sang ABBA,” Melissa says, scoffing.

“I mean it,” Mark insists. “It was...nice, hearing you sing like that all the time. Every time I’d think to myself, well if Melissa’s singing, it’s a decent day. We’ll probably be alive at the end of it.”

Melissa’s quiet at that, and Mark doesn’t press. “We should go to sleep,” Melissa says finally, turning out the small lamp by the cot. 

“Yeah,” Mark agrees. He knows when not to push her, by now. “Goodnight, Melissa.”

“Goodnight,” Melissa says, but it takes her a while before she finally falls asleep. As she’s lying awake in their bed, Mark sleeping peacefully next to her, Melissa gives in to the urge, and lightly traces his features with her fingertips, the slope of his nose, the curve of his jaw. 

Mark makes a faint noise in his sleep and Melissa quickly lifts her hand away, going absolutely still until Mark’s breathing evens out again. Melissa curls her hand in close against her chest, and doesn’t move for the rest of the night.

*

Melissa has had her suspicions about the Rich Purnell maneuver from the very beginning. The timing of it, NASA’s rapid switch from one plan to the next--none of it has ever made sense. None of it. 

It makes even less sense now that Melissa’s on the _Hermes_ , can see first hand the wear and tear on the _Hermes_ , everything from climate control to the filters. The _Hermes_ was supposed to get a full upgrade by now, and while Melissa’s confident they’ll make it home, she can’t help but look around her and marvel at the risks NASA’s taken--not just with six lives, but a ship worth billions of dollars.

Such incredible risks--bigger risks than Melissa can see Teddy Sanders taking as a director, or NASA taking as an organization. 

Melissa’s kept her suspicions to herself. She has no proof; it would be inexcusable to say something without proof. Or that’s what she tells herself anyway. But she notices things, and turns them over in her mind, and she waits. 

In the end, it’s Johanssen that gives Melissa the opening.

Over the last few weeks, Melissa’s noticed the way that Mission Control has been micromanaging the crew, far more closely than Melissa would expect. There’s plenty of reasons for it, Melissa’s sure--the length of the mission, how everyone’s still on edge from Melissa and Mark being stranded. 

Plenty of rational reasons, but Melissa doesn't believe them.

So when she sees Johanssen working on coding, Melissa finally remarks, “Mission Control seems to have a shorter leash on us than normal.”

Johanssen stops typing. Just for a moment, but it's enough to give the game away. “I suppose so.”

“Any ideas as to why?”

Johanssen looks at her. “I have a couple of ideas, yes.”

The question is on the tip of Melissa’s tongue, and it sounds absurd when she says it in her mind-- _Johanssen, did the crew commit mutiny to save us?_

“Commander,” Johanssen says, her face grave but composed. “If there’s something you’d like to ask me, you can just ask.”

Despite Johanssen’s composure, she looks so young in this moment, almost absurdly so. “I’m thinking this is something I should ask Major Martinez about, honestly,” Melissa says after a second.

Johanssen doesn’t miss the use of Martinez’s rank, her shoulders squaring as she says, the hint of a quaver in her voice the only break in her composure, “I think your question is something any one of us could answer. Ma’am.”

Well, there it is then. Melissa braces herself and asks, “The Rich Purnell maneuver--did NASA sign off on it?”

Johanssen takes a deep breath. “No. We...sort of forced their hand.”

“And how did you do that?”

“I might have hacked the ship,” Johanssen admits, and Melissa just stares at her before saying, faintly, “Yeah, I'm going to need more than that.”

Johanssen explains it, how they got the disguised message from someone in Mission Control--Johanssen swears she has no idea who it was, but Melissa has her suspicions--the crew coming together to discuss the maneuver, the opportunity.

“And then Martinez gave the order?”

“No, he put it to a vote,” Johanssen assures her. “He--” she smiles a little at this part, “--he said you’d kick his ass if he tried to make that call on his own.”

Melissa can't help but huff out a rueful laugh at that. “He was right on that.” Her smile fades as she looks at Johanssen.

Johanssen, who looks so damned young as she says, “He made the right call. We all voted yes, we made...we made the only call that we could.”

“You might have torpedoed your careers,” Melissa points out, her voice deceptively mild. “They'll certainly never let you up here again, and Martinez could face a court-martial--”

“It was the right call, Commander--”

“It was mutiny,” Melissa states, cutting Johanssen off. “You committed mutiny, all of you. I want you to hear me say this, I want you to know it's not something I take lightly--” Johanssen's eyes are wide and disbelieving in her face, and Melissa sighs as she finishes, more gently, “--so that when I tell you how grateful I am, you truly understand what I mean when I say that.” 

The tension leaves Johanssen’s body, her shoulders slumping in obvious relief. “Thank you,” Johanssen says after a long moment, swallowing. “I--you know that we couldn’t have done anything else, right?”

“I know,” Melissa says. “I would’ve done the same, had I been in your position.” The realization of that would have shocked her, once upon a time, but it doesn’t have the power to shock her now now. 

Johanssen nods before asking, tentatively, “They won't...I know it's a possibility, but they can't _really_ court-martial Martinez.”

“They could,” Melissa says after a moment, unwilling to lie. “But I'm going to do everything I can to make sure it doesn't happen.”

*

The _Hermes_ has its own digital library of every movie that every Ares crewmember has downloaded onto it. It’s partly why most of the crew, barring Johanssen, Melissa, and Mark, didn’t bother to bring much of anything down onto the surface of Mars. It’s also why Melissa now knows every single Fall Out Boy song ever released, and Mark can quote entire _Happy Days_ episodes from memory.

Now that they’re on board the _Hermes_ , and with a greater variety of pop culture to choose from, Martinez had the happy idea of starting a team movie night. Settling upon a genre is easier said than done, and they spend most of the hour arguing among themselves before Vogel cuts them all off with, “I want to see Disney movies.”

“Wait, what?” Martinez asks, but Beck’s already chiming in with, “I agree with Vogel.” At Martinez’s raised eyebrows, Beck shrugs. “Look, I spent most of kindergarten wanting to be Merida and pretending to shoot bows all over the playground, I’m voting for the princess movies all the way over that grim seventies shit you like.”

“And I vote for anything that wasn’t made in the seventies, so Disney it is,” Mark says. 

“I’ll take anything that doesn’t have zombies on Mars,” Melissa says, giving Mark a look. 

“Hey, that zombie movie was a classic--”

And that’s how they wind up having what Martinez calls a big sleepover in one of the common areas, blankets and pillows piled up on the floor while Johanssen rigs it so that the movies are projected on the ceiling above their heads. 

“How is it possible I’ve never heard of the movie where they made Robin Hood a fox?” Mark asks Melissa, sotto voce. His breath is warm against her cheek where he’s whispering into her ear, and Melissa smiles. 

“Because you were deprived as a child, Mark,” she tells him, and Mark snickers. A little later in the movie, when all the animals are dancing and frolicking in Sherwood Forest, Mark’s fingers start tracing along the back of Melissa’s hand. 

Melissa’s not even sure Mark’s fully aware he’s doing it, but Melissa doesn’t mind, exactly--it’s more that she’s now startlingly aware of every nerve ending in her hand. 

After a moment--or three--of this, Melissa shifts so that her hand is holding Mark’s, their fingers interlaced. Mark glances over at her when she does this, his eyes wide and dark in the dim lighting, and Melissa just smiles at him softly. 

They stay like that for the rest of the movie, even when the entire room cracks up at Martinez loudly heckling Prince John during the big climactic castle scene. Melissa tries and fails to muffle her snorts of laughter in Mark’s shoulder, the fleece of his sweater soft against her cheek--and in that exact moment, she is perfectly happy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There are many versions of the song Spanish Ladies that Melissa sings in this chapter (and a few alternate titles as well) but the version I was inspired by was the cover sung by Sarah Blasko, and a link to the song is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tRYMqLHu0U) if you're at all curious.
> 
> **Edit 2/15/2016:** I've written a sequel/continuation to this fic that is from Mark's POV, set during the events of this chapter. It's [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/6031201) if you're curious.


	3. Chapter Three

One year after the _Hermes_ returned to orbit around Earth, Melissa is standing in a Houston art museum with her mama, looking at a painting by Joan Miró and trying to ignore the excited whispers of the junior high school kids that are standing a few feet away. 

Her mama gently nudges her. “You’re going to have to say something to them.”

“I don’t know what to say,” Melissa says, because in the past year, she has never grown comfortable with this kind of attention in public, not really. But the click of their phones and the excited whispering becomes too much to ignore, so she does turn around, offering a calm “Hello,” to the gaggle of teenagers gawking at her. 

They all freeze, one of them still holding up their phone--and then the girl in front says, nervously, “Um. Hi?”

Her eyes are as round as plates behind her thick-rimmed glasses, and Melissa smiles. “Would you like a picture?”

They would, as it turns out, very much so--and when Melissa’s mama offers to take the photo on one of their phones, the girl who’s become the unofficial spokesperson for her friends says, “Oh, please, Mrs. Lewis--could you be in it too?”

Her mama blinks, but looks pleased at the idea. Melissa grins back--at least her notoriety is good for this much: no one ever does a double-take now when Melissa calls the older black woman standing next to her Mama. 

As her mama slides in next to them, handing the phone to a nearby docent who offers to take the photo, that same girl says, her braces flashing as she talks, “I loved your interview on CNN, the way you went after that reporter was _great_ , all my family thought so.”

“Well,” her mama says, glancing at Melissa, her eyebrows raised just so, “--thank you.”

They take the photo and then all the kids scatter to find the rest of their class, calling back their thanks in voices loud enough to echo off the walls. Melissa thanks the docent for his help with the photo, and starts to apologize for the fuss, but he won’t hear it--in fact, he asks for an autograph, explaining that “my boyfriend _loves_ you guys, he’d never speak to me again if I didn’t ask.”

“We can’t have that,” Melissa says, smiling, and pulls out one of the permanent markers she carries with her all the time now, signing one of the museum’s brochures with her now untidy scrawl of a signature. 

Once they’re finally alone, no one within earshot, Melissa looks at her mother and sighs. “A quiet day at the museum, huh?”

“I’ve seen your press conferences,” her mama says. “Honey, for you this is quiet.” Despite all that, she links her arm through Melissa’s, and they leave soon afterwards.

Outside, it’s starting to rain, the cold drizzle that’s typical for Houston in December. They’re quickly walking back to the car when Melissa’s phone starts to ring. Melissa pulls it out and sees Robert’s name and smiling face on the screen. 

“You need to get that?” her mama asks. 

“No, it can wait,” Melissa says, and hits ignore. 

*

Melissa has a 9am meeting with Annie Montrose the next morning to discuss the upcoming trip to China, and is in Annie’s office by 8:55 on the dot, waiting for Mark to join in from Chicago via Skype. 

“So we’re going to need to talk about the documentary,” Annie opens, once Mark’s face appears on the screen. Melissa scans his face quickly, as has become the norm during every one of their Skype calls--he looks good. Unshaven, but he’s got some color to his face, and he isn’t carrying any tension around his mouth.

Mark rolls his eyes, looking amused. “Hi, Annie. How are you? I’m doing well, thanks so much for asking.”

Annie gives him the impatient look that is by now her default expression when it comes to Mark. “Hi, Mark. We have a limited amount of time here, so let’s get going. As per your request, we went with PBS over HBO--”

“Score one for Sesame Street,” Mark says. “Do we get to be interviewed by Elmo?”

“I’m partial to Cookie Monster, myself,” Melissa offers. “Or Oscar the Grouch.”

Annie shoots her a glare for playing into Mark’s nonsense, but Mark’s beaming in delight, which was Melissa’s goal to start with. “You’re being interviewed by Fatima Ali, so no, Oscar the Grouch will not be making an appearance in China.”

“Oh shit,” Mark says, and Melissa presses, “Wait--Fatima Ali is going to interview us? The woman who just won an Oscar for her last documentary?”

“Yup,” Annie says, sounding less than pleased by the news. “And because PBS won’t give us nearly the same amount of editorial input and control that HBO would have, that journalist who’s won Pulitzers and an Oscar is going to have both you and NASA for a halal lunch if you don’t behave.”

That last part is directed at Mark, who just shrugs. “We’ll be fine.”

Annie does not exactly look convinced, and Melissa assures her, “We really will be fine, Annie. We know what’s at stake.”

And they do know. A year after the _Hermes_ returned to Earth, after the congressional hearings that made CSPAN must-watch TV, NASA and the Ares program are still hardly free from controversy. More than one senator has publicly taken issue with the deal NASA struck with the CSNA and the Chinese government, which has a Chinese astronaut joining the Ares 5 crew, especially when that astronaut won’t be picked and trained by NASA, but by the CSNA. 

So Mark and Melissa are off on a goodwill tour to Beijing, a tour carefully designed to smooth any ruffled feathers and generate good PR. 

“I’m counting on that,” Annie says. “You--” she points at Melissa, “--don’t get to freeze up into a uncommunicative turtle, and _you_ \--” she points at Mark’s face on the screen, “--do not get to call Fatima Ali an asshole, on camera or off.”

“I only did that one time!” Mark protests indignantly.

“Excuse me, you did not swear at reporters just once--”

“No, but I only called them ‘assholes’ once,” Mark says, holding up his finger in triumph. “I’m far more creative with my insults than that.”

Try as she might, Melissa can’t hold back her snicker, and Annie looks exasperated and Mark victorious. Turning away from the screen and his grin, Melissa promises again, modulating her voice to wipe out any laughter, “We’ll be fine.”

Annie snorts but lets it go with nothing more than a muttered, “Yeah, you’d better fucking be fine.” When Mark looks like he’s about to bring up Annie’s own use of profanity, Melissa quickly warns him off by holding up her hand, and he subsides. 

The rest of the meeting goes fairly smoothly, but once it’s over and Mark’s disconnected on his end, Annie stops Melissa from leaving. “Melissa, we should talk. Privately,” she adds, nodding at the dark screen. 

“Okay,” Melissa says slowly. She’s learned by now that when Annie has that particular tone, it never means anything good. “What is it?”

“I’m counting on you to keep Mark in line on this trip,” Annie starts, and Melissa can’t stop herself from sighing. 

“Mark doesn’t need me to keep him in line,” she says. “He’s actually great at dealing with the media, which you could stand to acknowledge--”

“Ninety percent of the time, he is,” Annie says. “He’s affable, funny, charming--everything that I could ask for. But the other ten percent, when he thinks that someone’s talking shit, Mark goes off-script, and you know that. Better than anyone.”

Melissa is silent, and Annie presses her point. “So yes, I do need you in particular to handle him, because Fatima Ali is not going to pull her punches, and the minute that anyone so much as looks at you wrong on camera, Mark transforms from the affable astronaut and botany geek into a feral guard dog.”

The problem is that Annie’s not wrong, which is why Melissa finally says, “I can handle Mark.” She shrugs a little, and holds Annie’s gaze as she adds, “Don’t I always?”

“Yeah,” Annie concedes. “Which is why I’m talking to you instead of fitting him with a shock collar.” Melissa’s mouth twitches, and Annie says darkly, “Trust me, after that MSNBC interview I was _this_ close to doing it.”

“Oh I believe you,” Melissa says. Her phone rings then, and Melissa glances down, smiling when she sees the display. Regular as clockwork. “I have to take this,” she says apologetically, and Annie waves her off, saying, “Go, go, I’ll talk to you later.”

Melissa answers her phone as soon as the door to Annie’s office is shut behind her. “You really need to stop baiting her, you know,” she tells Mark, even if she’s smiling as she says it. 

“I’m not baiting,” Mark says. “Just...expressing my point of view in a humorous way.”

“Baiting,” Melissa says, sing-song, and an intern walking by gives her a curious look. “No, but she has a point, Mark. We screw up on this trip, this documentary, and it’s not good for us or NASA.” 

“I know that, Melissa,” Mark says. “Come on, you really think I’m going to leave you holding the bag here?”

“No, of course not,” Melissa says, more gently now, walking into an elevator that is, thankfully, empty. “It’s just...I feel like I owe her, after that thing with my bio dad.”

Melissa hadn’t found out until she was safely back on Earth, NASA and her parents electing not to tell her until then, but her biological father (or, as Melissa referred to him during her teenage years, the asshole sperm donor) had been giving tear-filled interviews to every media outlet willing to pay him for an interview. And given that Melissa’s family had been so tight-lipped with the media at first, there were a lot of takers. And therefore, a lot of money for a man Melissa hadn’t spoken to or seen in over thirty years. 

Until Annie Montrose had gotten ahold of him, and somehow--Annie would never explain her methods--she’d gotten him to stop talking. To anyone. 

“The offer to slash that fucker’s tires and set his car on fire is still open, by the way,” Mark says, darkly. “Martinez has already said he’ll drive the getaway car. Vogel can make us some Molotov cocktails, and we’ll be good to go.”

“Yes, because that’s exactly what we need right now, you getting arrested for a felony,” Melissa says, rolling her eyes even as she’s grinning at the offer. 

“Fine, fine,” Mark grumps, but then he says, more seriously now, “And I get your point about Annie. Best behavior from now on, I promise.”

Melissa knows that isn’t a rock-solid guarantee--she trusts Mark’s intentions, but his patience for the media is thin, just as Annie had said. Still, his intentions count for a lot, and Melissa had meant what she’d said to Annie before, she can handle Mark. “Yeah, I know,” she says, stepping out of the elevator once the doors open into the parking garage, heading for her car.

“We’re still on for Chicago, right?” Mark asks. “You’re coming here first before the big flight to China?”

“Of course,” Melissa says. “December 27th, I’m there.”

“Good,” Mark says, and Melissa can hear the smile in his voice, can see it in her mind’s eye--that grin of his lighting up his entire face. “That’s good, because I’ve got an old, lumpy air mattress with your name on it.”

“Such wonderful hospitality, how can I resist,” Melissa drawls.

“You can’t, it’s impossible,” Mark says, his delivery right on time, and Melissa laughs. Once the laughter fades, she’s quiet for a moment, sitting in her car, her phone pressed to her ear. 

I miss you, Melissa doesn’t say. It’s absurd to say it, it’s absurd to even _think_ it--forget Mars, forget the trip home, they spent _months_ together in the rehab facility, months withstanding the congressional hearings, the media tour, and they talk almost every day since Mark moved back to Chicago to be with his family, and yet there it is. She misses having Mark here with her in Houston, misses having him within arm’s reach, misses--

It would be absurd to say it, so she doesn’t. “I’m looking forward to it,” Melissa says, and while that’s also true, Melissa mostly says it because it’s the safest thing she can say, right now. “Tell your parents I said hi, okay?”

“I will, you tell your family the same,” Mark says. “Merry Christmas, Melissa. See you soon.”

“See you,” Melissa says, but holds onto the phone until she hears the click on the other end. 

*

Melissa usually likes the holidays. She’s liked them since she was a kid, stuffing herself on her mama’s cooking, lounging around the house Christmas Day in her pajamas, seeing everyone’s delight in the presents she bought them, and getting to sing Christmas carols at the top of her lungs. 

Melissa usually likes the holidays, but this year--this year is a struggle. Her family’s in town, which is great, but she and Robert--

Melissa and Robert aren’t exactly on solid ground these days, and the holidays are only amplifying it. Melissa’s family is doing a wonderful job of skirting around the issue, but Melissa knows they’ve noticed the awkward silences, the way she and Robert always leave at least three inches of space between each other. 

It’s a state of affairs that can’t continue, but the breaking point--whatever it is--it isn’t going to come yet. 

Tonight they’re having dinner at home, and her brother Caleb is asking about the trip to China, the itinerary, the documentary. 

“Fatima Ali,” he says, with a low whistle. “God. That should be fun.”

“Yeah, fun’s not exactly how I’d describe it,” Melissa says dryly. “I’d have preferred someone a little less…”

“Intimidating?” Diana, Caleb’s fiancee, offers with a grin, and Melissa chuckles. 

“Yeah, exactly. At least Mark’s happy, although I think it’s more than he’s not really intimidated by anything.”

“That makes two of you, I think,” Diana says, and Melissa smiles and nods at the compliment. 

But her mom is frowning a little. “It’s a little too much, don’t you think? This documentary on top of the trip, I don’t--”

“Mom,” Melissa says, her stomach sinking. “Come on.”

“What, I’m just saying,” her mom says, ignoring Mama’s warning look. “I think it’s a lot to ask of you, to stand there and be filmed while you’re flying all the way to China, interrogated on camera--”

“It’s just a few interviews--”

“--after everything you’ve done already, everything they made you do--”

“They didn’t make me do anything,” Melissa says immediately to that, ignoring Caleb’s pleading expression. “Everything I have done, I made the decision to do.”

Her face feels hot, and it matches the angry flush to her mom’s cheeks. 

“Okay, maybe just take it down a notch,” Robert says quietly to her, and Melissa turns to look at him, her temper flaring. “I’m fine,” she says to him, her voice sharp, and goes back to her mom. “Everything I’ve done for NASA has been my decision, not because they were holding a gun to my head.”

“Even the congressional hearing?” her mom demands, and over to the side, Caleb lets out a low breath. 

Here it is. Melissa sighs. “Yes, Mom, even that.”

Her mom just scoffs. “Don’t give me that crap. You’d been back on Earth for barely a _week,_ you were still underweight, you couldn’t even walk because you hadn’t adjusted to Earth’s gravity yet, and there they were, flying you down to Washington to testify in front of Congress for _hours_.” Her mom starts cutting up her steak with far more force than is needed. “All to cover up their mistakes--”

“It wasn’t their mistakes, Mom,” Melissa snaps out. “It was a disaster on top of another one, on top of another one. You can’t keep blaming them for that, not when--” Melissa stops, but forces herself to go on. “Not when it’s me you’re really mad at.”

All the angry color drains out of her mother’s face. “Honey, no--” she begins, her voice cracking, and Melissa tightly shakes her head. 

“Come on. You never understood it when I joined the Navy, and then hey, NASA--even more dangerous, right? And then I got myself trapped on Mars because I ordered my crew to leave me behind to die, and you were stuck listening to that audio of it for months on the news. And now I’m finally back, but I’m still running around everywhere, making you worry--”

“That’s not what I meant,” her mother says, pleading, but Melissa is...too drained to argue, too drained to tiptoe around that particular unpleasant truth any longer. 

“I need some air,” she says, dropping her napkin onto her seat as she stands up. “Sorry, I just--I need a minute.”

Caleb finds her standing outside the house ten minutes later, wrapped in a blanket, gazing up at the night sky. “Hey,” he says, tentatively, and Melissa shoots him a tight smile. 

“You drew the short straw, huh?” she says, and Caleb just shakes his head. 

“Melissa, come on. You know she didn’t mean it like that.”

Melissa doesn’t answer, and Caleb sighs and comes closer. “Mom is just...protective. We all are. And NASA is asking a lot from you, you have to admit that.”

Melissa sighs. “If they are, it’s not anything I’m not willing to give. You guys have to believe that, please.”

Caleb bites his lip, but nods. “Yeah. Okay.”

Melissa looks away, feeling the now-familiar twist of guilt to her stomach. “Sorry about doing...all that in front of Diana.”

Caleb scoffs like that, sounding a lot like Mom for a moment. “Please, she saw way worse when you were on Mars. This is like a blip.” 

He means it to be comforting, Melissa knows, but that just makes her stomach twist harder, knowing what they’ve all been through, how they would’ve thought the hard part was over, now that she’s safely home--

Except some days, it doesn’t feel like Melissa came back _right_. Now she’s this woman who hates crowds and open windows, who fights with her mother at the dinner table. 

Who would rather call Mark in Chicago to vent about her night than discuss it with her own husband. 

Melissa loosens her grip on her phone. She’s not calling Mark. She can’t do that. 

But she looks at her brother, patiently waiting to hear something from her, and thinks that maybe she can talk to him. Give him something real, at least.

“You were great with the media when I was gone,” she says after a minute. “I know you must’ve hated every minute of it, but I saw those clips and you...you were really great.”

Caleb lifts his shoulders in a dismissive shrug. “Yeah, well. Moms weren’t really able to do it, and Robert was a wreck, so.” He grins a little, that delighted little-boy grin that always got him out of trouble when they were young, asking, “Did you see that first interview I did with CNN?”

“Oh God,” Melissa says, groaning. “The one where they couldn’t get over the idea that we were adopted siblings?”

Caleb adopts an announcer’s voice, saying, “Now, Caleb, I understand that you must be biracial, right?” Caleb does an exaggerated look of shock, gesturing to himself, his light brown skin and pale blue eyes, gasping, “No. All this time, I’ve never noticed that I’m biracial and my sister’s a white woman, it _totally_ escaped my notice.”

Melissa laughs, and Caleb grins, pleased with himself. “There you go. First real smile I’ve seen out of you all night.”

Melissa shrugs a little, unable to really deny it. “Long week, I guess.”

“Yeah,” Caleb says, giving her a sidelong look. “And you and Robert…”

Melissa exhales. “We’ll be fine. Just...just a rough patch.”

Caleb doesn’t look like he’s entirely buying it, but he does her the favor of not pushing. “Okay. You’ll tell me if you need anything?” 

“Yeah,” Melissa says, nodding. “Of course.”

She doesn’t immediately follow Caleb back into the house. Despite the cold, she lingers outside for a moment longer, staring up at the waxing moon, the stars that are still visible despite the light pollution. Dragging in a deep breath of the cold, crisp air, Melissa braces herself, and heads back inside. 

Of course, her mom doesn’t let the night end on that note. Melissa doesn’t expect anything less, but she’s still surprised when her mom tracks her down and immediately hugs her, apologizing unreservedly. “Honey, I’m so sorry--”

“It’s okay,” Melissa says, shaking her head. “Sorry I snapped at dinner. I just--I’ve been tense, lately.”

“You know I’ve never been angry with you, right?” her mother asks her, her gaze pleading still as she strokes Melissa’s hair, the side of her face. “I have been proud of you since the day we brought you home, and nothing could ever change that.”

“I know,” Melissa says, her throat tight. She still remembers her family’s ecstatic cheers the day she graduated from the Naval Academy, her mom calling up all their relatives the day she made it through the Astronaut Candidate Program. “Mom, I’ve always known that.”

“I just…” her mom says, her forehead creased with worry, “I see you struggling still and I get angry with everyone, I think. Hell, I even get angry at Mars. But not you, honey. Never you.”

“I know,” Melissa says, and it doesn’t matter that her own voice is cracking; her mom’s the only person around, and she’s not going to tell. “It’s okay, I know.”

Melissa was half-hoping otherwise, but Robert’s still up in bed, reading from his tablet. He looks up, his hair rumpled. Melissa notes how handsome he looks, but distantly, as if she’s admiring a painting from across the room. “You okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine,” Melissa says, and starts to change for bed. Robert waits for her to say more, and when she doesn’t, leaves it there and returns to his tablet. 

He always leaves it alone these days, and what’s worse is that Melissa takes the out, every single time.

They go to sleep on their separate sides of the bed that night, and Melissa stares up at the ceiling for a long time before she falls asleep. In the morning, there are pancakes and only slightly stilted conversation among her family, and a goofy good-morning text from Mark that has Melissa smiling to herself as she replies.

When she looks up from her phone, Robert’s watching her from across the breakfast table, but he doesn’t ask, and Melissa doesn’t offer any answers.

*

Christmas itself turns out all right in the end. Her family's great, and Melissa and Robert put on a show of normalcy that almost feels like the real thing. Melissa spends Christmas Day in her pajamas, singing carols and opening presents, and when Robert kisses her cheek in the kitchen as they're preparing dinner, Melissa smiles at him.

He gives her a searching look and starts, "Melissa..." Whatever he's about to say, he thinks better of it, just smiling back at her and saying, "You look nice."

"I look awful," Melissa snorts, gesturing to her messy ponytail, her sweats and ratty Minnesota Lynx shirt.

"You always look nice," Robert says, and Melissa smiles at him sweetly, ignoring the ache in her chest.

The ache is there every time she looks at her husband now; it's nothing new.

Her family reacts to Melissa's travel plans with a studied nonchalance that doesn't fool Melissa for a second, Caleb and Diana sharing a glance, Mom's eyebrows going up, before Mama puts a warm smile on her face and says, "Well, that sounds great, honey. Say hello to James and Beth for us, will you?"

"Sure, but given that you're all Facebook friends, do I really need to play telephone?" Melissa asks, teasing, and is rewarded when her mama snorts and says, "You better watch that smart mouth of yours, or Fatima Ali is going to have a field day."

"Can't have that," Melissa jokes, and the matter is dropped.

The next day, her family leave early for the airport to go home to Minneapolis, and once they’ve left in the cab, Melissa goes to pack her own bags for the trip to Chicago.

Robert comes into the doorway of their bedroom, but doesn't speak, just watches her pack before finally asking, "That's all you're taking?"

Melissa shrugs, folding up a shirt. “Annie’s bringing up the wardrobe I’ll be wearing in China with her; she said she doesn’t trust me with it.”

“Wardrobe, huh?” Robert says with a little smile.

“You should see the stuff they have me wearing,” Melissa says, shaking her head. “Five minutes into the fittings and I had to look away from the price tags, otherwise I would’ve lost my mind.”

Robert snickers, and for a second, Melissa can look at her husband and know exactly what he’s thinking--he’s remembering when she went shopping for her wedding dress, and came home to their apartment with no dress, ranting furiously about scams and not falling prey to a giant con. For the rest of that week, she’d threatened to wear her dress uniform to the wedding.

For just that second, they’re in sync, and then Robert’s face shifts, and the moment is gone. “I’ll let you finish packing,” he says, and disappears. 

Melissa stares down at her half-filled suitcase, then shakes herself and gets back to work. 

*

Melissa takes the high-speed train into Chicago. She’s not up for dealing with the highway tolls if she drove, and she’s not getting on a plane before she absolutely has to, so the train it is. She splurges on a first-class seat, signs autographs when asked, and goes over her briefing materials on her tablet the entire way. 

When she finally comes into the train station in Chicago that evening, she’s tired and worn out, but still breaks out into a smile when she sees Mark’s parents waiting for her. 

A year in, Melissa’s used to the fact that Mark’s parents are huggers; she just laughs and goes with it when Mark’s mom, Beth, pulls her immediately into a hug. “Mark’s in the car, we figured there would be less fuss if we were the ones waiting for you,” she explains, beaming as she pulls back to look Melissa over. “You look wonderful, honey.”

“A little less fuss,” Mark’s dad, James, says, glancing around with amusement at the people gawking at them. “How was your trip?”

“It was fine,” Melissa says, for once not caring about the click of camera phones as they walk to pick up her luggage. 

Melissa tries to take her suitcases once they get them off the carousel, but James and Beth won’t hear of it, shooing her away every time she tries to take one. 

Before Melissa quite knows what happens, they’re out of the station and onto the street, they turn a corner and--and there Mark is, standing beside the SUV. 

Melissa does not consider herself to be a hugger. That doesn’t seem to matter now, because all of a sudden Mark’s arms are wrapped tightly around her, and her face is tucked into the nape of his neck, and Melissa just can’t stop smiling. 

When she finally pulls back from the hug, Mark is beaming at her. “You made it.”

Melissa gives a little shrug, but she still can’t stop smiling back at him. “Said I would, didn’t I?”

She hears James clear his throat behind them. “Not to interrupt, but we should probably get into the car, maybe--”

“Right, of course,” Mark says quickly, flushing as he goes to grab Melissa’s suitcases. Melissa’s braced for the looks she’ll get as she turns back around to face them, but James and Beth act as if nothing’s odd at all. 

*

Mark’s parents insist on taking Melissa out for deep-dish, and at the restaurant, they get into an in-depth conversation on all the touristy things Melissa must do before they leave for China. 

“You do realize that I grew up in the Midwest and have been to Chicago before, right?” she can’t help but tease, once Mark and his father are in an argument together over the Bean. 

“There’s no reason we can’t show you a good time,” James protests. 

“Pity it’s not baseball season,” Beth says, wistful. 

“Mark and I have a deal. I go to a baseball game at Wrigley once he comes with me to see the Lynx play at the Target Center,” Melissa tells them. 

“Well, then he should get on that,” Beth laughs. “We’ll make a Cubs fan out of you yet.”

“I don’t know,” Melissa says, “Martinez has been pushing the Yankees on me pretty hard, so…” She tries, she really does, but it’s impossible to keep a straight face at the disgusted expressions both Beth and Mark have. 

“A year and a half of disco she put me through,” Mark says to his parents, “And this is what I get in return.”

“Oh, please,” Beth says, waving a hand dismissively. “You can’t pull that nonsense with us, not when you were playing Diana Ross in the car on the way to the station.”

As Mark turns red, Melissa cackles. 

It’s not until they leave the restaurant that there’s a spot of trouble--not with the other diners, who’ve been respectful overall, but when Beth checks her phone. “What is it?” Mark asks, as her face falls. 

Beth tries to smile, but doesn’t quite manage it. “Oh, it’s nothing. Just--some people on Twitter with photos of us all out together.”

Despite herself, Melissa flashes back to the train station, the way she’d gone straight into Mark’s arms, not caring who could see them, not caring about all the people who _did_ see them. Shit.

Mark looks like he’s cursing to himself as well, but he tries to put a good face on it, shrugging as he says, “Everyone likes to play paparazzi, right?”

“Right,” James says, and it could be Melissa’s imagination, the glances that he and Beth give each other. She doesn’t think that it is, though. 

*

Melissa could have gotten a hotel, and after the warning at the restaurant, she probably should’ve checked into one, no matter what Mark would have said. 

She doesn’t. She doesn’t, and there are no excuses around it. It’s her decision, her choice, something she walks into with her eyes wide open. 

“Don’t worry about the doorman,” Mark assures her as he opens the door to his apartment, one of Melissa’s suitcases in his hand. “He’s a good guy, he won’t--he won’t say anything.”

“I’m not worried,” Melissa says. Mark looks at her at that, but he doesn’t say anything, just turns on the light and shows her in. 

It’s easier once she’s in Mark’s apartment, seeing how it reflects him, his personality. “Of course you have plants everywhere,” Melissa says softly, smiling at the sight of all those green leaves, the delicate flowers. 

She reaches out to rub a leaf between her fingers, feeling the texture of it, and looks up after a moment to see Mark watching her, his eyes soft. 

It’s precisely because Melissa enjoys that look on his face that she has to break that moment, smiling awkwardly as she asks, “So, about that air mattress?”

Mark snorts, the moment broken as if it never happened. “My mother would disown me if I put you on an air mattress. Come on, I’ll show you the guest bedroom.”

It’s still fairly early in the evening, which is how she and Mark end up on the couch in their sweats, watching basketball on ESPN and heckling the Knicks. Well, Melissa’s heckling, Mark is just sitting there and laughing at her. 

“So why do we hate the Knicks again?”

“Because they're constantly an underachieving mess with awful ownership, and they're really easy to laugh at,” Melissa says with a shrug. “They haven't won a championship since the 70s.” She shoots him a sly look and adds, “I know you're a Cubs fan so you might not realize this, but in basketball terms that's a really long time.”

“Ha ha,” Mark says dryly. “Keep this up and I really will stick you on the air mattress.”

“Please,” Melissa scoffs, settling into the couch. “You wouldn't dare.”

Melissa doesn't sleep on the air mattress or the guest bedroom that night, though, not at first. No, she ends up drifting to sleep on the couch, waking up hours later to find the afghan tucked around her, Mark’s arm casually around her shoulders as he watches some action movie on mute, the closed captioning on so she's not disturbed.

Melissa takes the opportunity to look at him, his face, how his closely-cropped hair has more gray in it than a year before. In that moment, her body still heavy from sleep, Melissa is unguarded enough to acknowledge, even if only to herself, how badly she wants to stay here, curled up next to Mark with nowhere else to go. 

Of course, Mark knows she's awake. He looks down at her, his face warm with affection as he says, “You drifted off during Sportscenter, I thought I would let you get some rest.”

“Thanks, I needed it.” Despite the fact that she's awake and therefore has no excuse to linger, Melissa does just that, not moving from Mark’s side. Mark doesn't make a move either, doesn't shift away or take his arm off her shoulder. He just keeps looking at her, as if she's more interesting than the movie, as if she's the most fascinating thing in the room. 

It would be easy to stay, tempting to curl up next to his warm body and stay there for as long as she wants. But Melissa doesn't do that, because she can't. Not anymore.

So she breaks first, looking away as she shifts her body away from Mark's, lifting the afghan off her as she says, “I should probably get to bed, though.”

“Yeah, yeah of course.” If there's any disappointment in Mark's voice, Melissa doesn't hear it. “See you in the morning.”

“Of course,” Melissa says as she gets off the couch, turning to give him one last smile. Her hair is surely mussed, her clothes rumpled--and yet the way Mark's looking at her...God, she's missed that look. Even if she's not allowed to. “Goodnight, Mark.”

Despite her words to Mark, it does take her a while to fall asleep that night. 

*

Annie calls the next morning. 

Melissa wakes up with an ache in her bad ankle, and eventually comes out of the guest bedroom in her oversized Navy t-shirt and ratty sweatpants to find Mark talking to someone on the phone. "No, I'm not putting Melissa on, she's still sleeping. Annie, I hear you but we can't avoid all wannabe paparazzi on the street--"  


Melissa leans against the wall and says softly, "Mark, give me the phone."

Mark turns in surprise, and pulls the phone away from his face to say, "You don't want me to do that, she's at Peak Annie right now." It's their old codeword from the media blitz of months before, when Annie was in charge of shepherding two of the most famous astronauts in the world from interview to interview.

It's not exactly a smart play to drop the phrase while Annie's on the phone listening to them, however, and from the phone Melissa hears Annie tinnily yelling, "Put me on speaker, asshole! God, fucking--" Mark hits the speaker button and Annie's voice comes out as loud and clear as a bell as she rants, "--it's enough to make me wish for the days when Hollywood studio heads were the biggest assholes I had to deal with!"

"Hi Annie," Melissa says. "What's wrong now?"

"What's wrong is that the two of you have no sense of discretion whatsoever," Annie snaps out. Melissa stays impassive, but she can see the tiny flinch Mark gives at this. "Jesus Christ, Mark, you could've at least stayed in the car instead of playing out that charming reunion scene for the entire planet."

"The entire planet doesn't give a damn that I'm in Chicago with Mark," Melissa says wearily.

"No, but the millions of people who read gossip blogs _do_ ," Annie says. "And the two of you are splashed over every single one--" Annie stops herself, very obviously counting to ten, and Melissa and Mark don't say a word.

"Look," Annie says at last, her voice more controlled now, "I'm not gonna ask why you're in Chicago right now, I won't ask why you're staying at Mark's apartment. I have never asked those kinds of questions, because that is not my job. But when pictures like this are in the press, when I'm getting calls from tabloids demanding to know _yet again_ what the exact nature of your relationship is, it becomes my job." Annie lets out an angry sigh. "You're two of the best and brightest astronauts NASA has ever had, start acting like you have some brains."

Mark's not looking at Melissa while Annie's saying this, he's staring out the window, his face distant and unhappy. Watching him, Melissa asks, "Okay, so how do we make this better?"

"Stay inside," Annie tells them. "There'll be photographers casing the building, so I don't want you two leaving the apartment for now--especially not together. You order takeout, pizza, whatever--have them deliver it to the front desk rather than your door. And for the love of God, no more slipups until China, okay?"

"Okay," Melissa says.

"Good," Annie huffs, muttering to herself, "Goddamn studio moguls were easier than this, Christ," before hanging up without a goodbye.

Mark tosses his phone onto the nearby couch. Hands on his hips, he looks at her and asks, "Want to take bets on which one of our parents calls us first?"

"No bet," Melissa says.

Mark bites at his lip before finally blurting out, "Jesus, Melissa, what...what are we even doing right now? I mean, you and I, we--" Melissa holds her breath, waiting, and Mark just shakes his head as he says, "Annie's right, we're smarter than this. After those interviews, the questions, the innuendo and jokes, and we keep on--look, I made a mistake yesterday, I know that--"

Melissa can't think of a conversation she wants to have less than this one, but she can't bear to hear Mark blaming himself for the mistakes they made together, so she talks. "I came here because I missed you."

Mark stops talking and looks at her, his body very still and his eyes very wide.

"I've missed you," Melissa says again, her heart pounding as she admits to it. "Ever since you left Houston to take the position with the University of Chicago, I've...I've missed you." She tries to smile, but can feel it trembling at the edges, so she stops, ducking her head as she tries to compose herself, her face.

Not that it'll really matter, Mark can read her by now just as well as she can read him. So Melissa looks back up, brushing her hair out of her eyes as she delivers the rest of the truth. "I've missed you, and I wanted to see you, and I didn't want to think about anything else besides that. Everything else is...messy. That wasn't, and so I came here."

Mark swallows. “I missed you too. All the time.”

This time when Melissa tries to smile, it sits easier on her face. “Okay, then. We can just...be hermits together for the week. Or however long it takes for the photographers to go away.”

Mark smiles. “I hope you like Thai food.”

*

In the year since they’ve come home, Melissa has learned that just about everyone on the planet has an opinion about whether she and Mark fucked on Mars. From NASA’s psychiatrists who were tasked with figuring out just how they managed to survive that long without a) going insane or b) killing each other, to the media that was hungry for all the gritty, juicy details, to the sexist male astronauts from another age who look at Melissa and see her pretty face and gender and nothing else, to the people on the street who look at Mark and Melissa and cast them in some romantic comedy in their heads--everyone has an opinion.

Melissa knows this, and she ignores it as best she can for her own sanity. She doesn’t respond to the rumors, to the leading questions for journalists looking for a soundbite; she definitely doesn’t react when some hopeful paparazzo shouts rude questions at her, hoping for an angry reaction on camera. 

Melissa doesn’t react because if she thinks about it for more than two seconds, she might actually burn something from the force of her rage. To diminish everything they went through, to take their devotion to each other and turn it into tawdry gossip about the sex they might’ve had on another planet--Melissa hates it. 

But as much as Melissa might despise it, she’s also seen the footage of them together during an interview, she’s seen the photographs of the two of them in the magazines. Melissa may hate the speculation, she can believe it’s beneath her to respond to it--but she can’t say she doesn’t know where it’s coming from. 

*

A week later, Mark and Melissa are sitting together in a hotel room overlooking Lake Michigan, settling in for their first interview with Fatima Ali. 

Mark leans in to ask in a low whisper, “Nervous?” When Melissa just looks at him with a raised eyebrow, he laughs and settled back into his seat. “Yeah, that's what I thought.” 

Melissa isn't the type to get starstruck--and if she had been, the past year would have gotten her over that quickly--but as Fatima Ali walks in, Melissa will admit to a faint flutter in her stomach. She's not as tall as Melissa would have expected perhaps, but the sheer presence she has is...impressive.

Fatima smiles at them, shaking their hands in quick succession. “Hello Mark, Melissa, it's so good to meet you both.”

“Likewise,” Mark says as they settle back down into their seats. 

Over in a corner of the room, past the cameras, Melissa can see Annie watching them, a ball of tension. Melissa turns her focus back to where Fatima and Mark are making small talk about Fatima’s flight into the city, some of the restaurants around town. Melissa chimes in when she can, and when she wants to, but for the most past she lets Mark take the lead, his easy charm paving the way.

“All right then,” Fatima says, smiling at them both. “Shall we begin?”

Melissa deliberately relaxes her shoulders, preparing herself for the first question of many. “Of course.” 

*

Melissa doesn't have a phobia when it comes to flying. She’s very clear on the risks of flying, knows the odds of dying in a car accident or even just crossing the street at a busy intersection are far higher than dying in a plane crash.

She just hates doing it. She particularly hates that moment of takeoff, that loud sound of the engines, being pressed back into her seat as the airplane rises up and up and up. It doesn't take a psychologist to figure out why that is, but Melissa's self-awareness doesn't change the fact that she simply hates flying. 

At the end of the day, though, she can hide her hatred a lot better than Mark can. They're sitting in first class on the plane, across from Annie and Fatima, who are quietly talking amongst themselves, and the cameraman silently filming both her and Mark all the while. 

Melissa is attempting to go over her speech to the CSNA on her tablet, but it's impossible to concentrate. It's not just her own nerves that are the issue, it's the waves of tension and agitation that are radiating from Mark right now. 

Mark insisted on taking the window seat, in an act of generosity that was as kindly meant as it was misguided. They'll be thousands of feet above the ground regardless, whether Melissa is sitting by the window or not isn't going to make her feel better or worse. 

Taking the window seat is definitely not helping Mark, not from the unhappy set to his jaw, the way he's fixedly looking out the window as the plane slowly wheels over to the runway for takeoff.

Melissa stays quiet at first, but as Mark’s breathing starts to pick up, his fingernails nervously tapping on the armrest, she quietly says, “Mark,” reaching out to cover his hand with. “It's okay, we’re fine.”

Mark immediately reacts, lacing their fingers together and squeezing as hard as he can. When he looks at her, she can see the edge of panic in his eyes, the rigid way he's holding himself still in his seat.

“It's fine,” Melissa promises, her voice low and soothing as the plane starts to take off, pressing them down in their seats, Mark getting more wild-eyed as a result. “It's fine, I'm right here. We are fine.”

She says this, and keeps her hand intertwined with Mark’s, not letting go. Later, the documentary will show Mark and Melissa in their seats, the two of them holding hands as Mark works through the worst of his panic, Melissa’s body turned towards Mark, all of her attention focused on him. 

It's an arresting image, compelling and suggestive, even if they miss the detail of Melissa’s other hand gripping her own armrest, so hard that her knuckles have turned white.

*

Four hours into their flight, Mark looks over at Melissa’s tablet and says, “Still reading up on Huang?”

“Just reviewing,” Melissa says lightly, still too aware that they’re on camera. “You know me, always wanting to be prepared.”

“Hm,” Mark says, looking at Adam Huang’s photograph. “Remind me to get his photograph for my cousin Ella.” At Melissa’s raised eyebrow, Mark shrugs and says, “She’s fourteen, she’s had a crush on him ever since he was selected for Ares 5. Not that I blame her, he’s a good-looking man.”

“Is the autograph for your cousin or for you?” Melissa teases lightly. 

“Hey, I’m just stating the obvious. Huang is just freakishly good-looking, it’s like the CSNA picked him from a catalog.”

Annie glances up from whatever she’s typing on her phone. “You are aware that the same thing could be said about the two of you, right?”

“Oh, come on,” Mark says, lifting Melissa’s tablet to show Annie the photo of Adam Huang that’s part of his profile where, yes, he looks unbelievably handsome. “To quote my cousin, he’s so perfect-looking he could have been grown in a lab.”

“Yes, but as far as I’m aware, he’s not on _People_ ’s list of the 50 Most Beautiful People In The World,” Annie says, triumphant, and Melissa’s mouth falls open. It falls open even farther when Annie adds, dryly, “Congratulations, Melissa.”

“No,” Melissa says, not a refusal so much as plain denial. “You’re _kidding me_. When is this happening?”

“Not for a while,” Annie says. “I only know about it because _People_ contacted us over doing it last year, but I talked them into waiting, it seemed a bit crass with everything that was going on.”

Mark’s biting back a grin, which he finally breaks into when he asks, half-laughing, “Does she have to pose for a photo? Please say yes.”

As Melissa turns to glare at him, Annie says, “I don’t know why you’re gloating, Mark, you’re on the list too.”

The smile drops off Mark’s face as he asks, plainly astonished, “Wait, what?”

As Annie smirks at them, and Fatima can clearly be seen attempting to hide her own smile, Melissa gives into temptation and puts her face in her hands, cool against her flushed cheeks.

“Jesus, Martinez is never going to let us hear the end of this,” Mark groans, slumping back into his seat. 

*

Entering Beijing is...not what Melissa expects. After a flight lasting over thirteen hours, Melissa’s ready to collapse into her hotel bed, not to be met with translators and people from China’s State Agency and, most importantly, a wall of photographers clamouring for photographs. 

It’s like the early days after coming home from the _Hermes_ , where every press conference was filled wall to wall with reporters jockeying for position, and the sight of all those people, all those faces in the crowd, has Melissa’s stomach clenching with dismay and not a little panic. 

It’s Mark’s hand on her back that brings her back to herself, the quick glance he gives her as they step forward, and after a moment, Melissa can even pull herself together enough to speak to the crowd, pausing after every sentence or two so that the translator has time to convey what she’s saying. She keeps it brief and vague, stating how glad she and Mark are to be here for this visit, that they hope this can be the start of a new age of cooperation between NASA and the CSNA. 

Annie hustles them off before Melissa has the chance to say much else, whispering quickly in her ear, “That was perfect, Melissa, great job.”

“I didn’t think the crowd would be that big,” is all Melissa says in response, walking as quickly as she can in her heels to the large SUVs that are waiting outside the airport to take them to their hotel. There are even larger crowds outside the airport, holy shit, and Melissa almost freezes at the wall of sound that greets them, the cheers and shouts and always, always the flash of cameras going off. 

Half-blinded, Melissa leans into Mark’s guiding hand, still placed on her back. Praying she looks dignified in the peacoat, sheath dress and heels Annie insisted she put on in the plane’s bathroom before they landed, Melissa slips into the car, Mark right behind her. 

Once the car door is shut, Melissa takes her first easy breath since they landed. 

“God, that was intense,” Mark says, peering through the tinted windows at the crowds outside. “Annie, what the hell, you never said it’d be like that.”

“No, but we probably should have expected it,” Annie says as the car starts to move. “You guys are a big deal here. Well, you’re a big deal everywhere, but especially here.”

She starts talking to their translator about some detail of their trip, and Mark takes the opportunity to lean in to speak to Melissa in an undertone, asking, “Are you good?”

Melissa forces herself to relax--and allows herself the momentary comfort of leaning in just a little bit into Mark’s space. “Yeah. I’m fine. I will be fine,” she adds, when Mark doesn’t look completely convinced. 

“Good,” Mark says as he leans back against his seat--but not moving away from Melissa, their shoulders almost, but not quite, brushing. “That’s good.”

*

Given the stresses of the day, the flight, the crowds, it’s not a surprise that Melissa has bad dreams once she’s finally in her hotel room for the night. 

It’s not a surprise, but it’s deeply unpleasant all the same. Tonight’s nightmare is a familiar one, where she and Mark are tumbling in orbit around Mars in that wreck of a MAV, except that in the dream, Melissa is dying and she knows it, and is trapped in that coffin of a ship, listening to Mark scream her name in despair. 

When she’s finally dragged into consciousness, it’s to a dark room and quick, desperate knocks on her door--and Mark, still screaming.

Disoriented and groggy, Melissa drags herself out of bed to find Annie waiting outside the door, wearing a robe and a harassed expression, explaining, “We’ve been trying but we can’t wake him up, I think the entire floor’s hearing him--”

Not listening to the rest, Melissa rushes past her to Mark’s hotel door, distantly noting the presence of the documentary crew, other hotel guests poking their heads out into the hallway, and of course, the drone camera floating above their heads, capturing each pained scream for the viewers back home. God-fucking-dammit. 

Melissa puts it all aside to do what she has to do, which is to knock loudly on Mark’s door, calling out, “Mark, it’s Melissa, can you let me in?”

The screams cut off, but if Melissa presses her ear to the door, she can hear Mark’s ragged, panting breaths. “Mark. Let me in, okay? Just me.”

“Is there anything I can do?” Annie asks in a soft undertone, and Melissa doesn’t look at her as she replies quietly, “Just clear the area, okay?”

Annie slips off to make their excuses, and Melissa glances over just the once to see Fatima standing outside her hotel door, her customary headscarf hastily tied over her hair, watching her closely. 

Refusing to pay any more attention to that or anything else, Melissa turns back to the door, waiting until it finally opens a crack, and she can step inside.

The second the door is shut behind her, she steps forward into Mark’s arms, hugging him until his arms wrap around her, so tight that she wouldn’t be able to move if she wanted to. Mark’s shirt is damp with sweat, his body’s trembling slightly still, and he’s holding onto her hard enough to leave bruises--and there is nowhere else Melissa would rather be in this exact second. 

“Sorry,” Mark mumbles eventually into the nape of her neck, his voice hoarse, heavy with exhaustion.

Melissa pulls back, not far, just enough to look up into his face. There’s a lamp on, and the dim lighting is enough for her to look him in the eye and say firmly, “Hey, you don’t apologize to me, remember? Not for anything.”

Mark nods, his eyes still shadowed, and Melissa gives into the urge to fit her hand to his cheek, the stubble rasping against her palm, comforting herself as much as him. At last Mark lets out a low, pained chuckle, shaking his head a little as he confesses, “Fuck, I _hate_ flying.”

“Join the club,” Melissa says, lifting her mouth into a wry little smile, which Mark returns. They stand there for a moment together, still embracing, Mark’s arms warm across her back. “Do you want to talk about it?” Melissa asks him after a moment. 

Mark shakes his head, and Melissa offers next, despite knowing she shouldn’t, “Do you--I could stay, if you wanted.”

Mark lifts his head at that. “You _can’t_ ,” he points out. “Christ, Melissa, the way it’ll look…”

The words are right there on the tip of Melissa’s tongue, the urge to blurt out that she doesn’t _care_ how it looks, not when Mark is like this in front of her, still shaking from a nightmare, not when him screaming her name is still ringing in her ears. 

Instead what Melissa says, what she forces herself to say, is, “I know. I know I can’t, I just…”

She’s still cupping Mark’s face in her hand, and Mark turns his face, his lips just brushing her palm, and Melissa feels it like a brand, the heat of it sinking through her skin to the bone. Oh God.

Mark looks at her, his hands still on her back, his fingers splayed over her shoulder blade, the curve of her waist as he repeats again, “I know. But you can’t. We can’t--”

There’s a knock on the door, and Melissa bites back her frustration as Annie calls out, gently, “Guys? You okay in there?”

Melissa exhales, forcing herself back to sanity and propriety once more. “Okay. Okay, let’s...let’s go and talk to her, let her know everything’s good.”

Mark nods, and when they open the door, Mark greets Annie with a sheepish smile, apologizing for the fuss, reassuring her that he’s fine, he really is, just an old nightmare of his, nothing to be worried about. 

“Okay,” Annie says at last, the worried crease between her eyebrows easing. “Try to get some rest, okay?”

“I will,” Mark promises as Melissa steps out of the doorway. “Don’t worry, I’m fine.”

The last part is to Melissa as much as it is to Annie, and Melissa turns to give him one last look before she goes back to her bed. Mark holds her gaze for a long moment, before nodding slightly and closing the door with a gentle click of the lock.

“See you in the morning,” Melissa says wearily to Annie, and trudges off to her own bed, where she stares up at the ceiling for a long time before falling at last into an uneasy sleep.


	4. Chapter Four

The next morning, Melissa and Mark are suffering from jet lag and a more general exhaustion, quietly picking at their breakfasts in Melissa’s room while Annie reviews the itinerary for the day. It’s unsurprisingly jam-packed, and if Melissa’s stomach sinks as Annie blithely says, “And of course, we have time scheduled in the afternoon for you to speak with Fatima--” she’s too smart to let it show. 

Mark lifts his head and asks, quietly, “How much is she going to ask about last night?”

Melissa looks up at that, as Annie says in a gentler tone, “It...I won’t lie, it could come up. If you don’t want to speak about it, I can talk to her--”

“No, it’s fine,” Mark says, turning his attention back to his plate. “I just want to know what to be prepared for.”

If Annie wasn’t here, Melissa would touch him, grip his wrist until he looked at her and remembered she was there. But Annie is here and watching them both, and after last night, Melissa has so little leeway left. 

“She’ll ask about how you’re adjusting,” Annie says after a moment. “They have the footage from last night, and they’ll use it in the documentary. Some of it, at least. Whatever answer you give them, it needs to at least sound real. Okay?”

Mark nods. “Trust me, I’ve become an expert at giving those kinds of answers by now.” His gaze turns to Melissa and he adds, to her more than Annie, “It’ll be fine.”

Melissa nods. “Of course it will.”

*

It is fine, mostly. Their first stop is to meet Guo Ming, director of the CSNA. At the CSNA’s headquarters, it’s another crowd of reporters, Melissa wearing yet another sheath dress--ivory, this time, and smiling with Mark for a photo op before they sit down with Guo Ming and Zhu Tao, the Under Director who came up with the idea of using the _Taiyang Shen_ to save them both. 

It goes fine, of course--Melissa’s already starting to get used to speaking through a translator, the way she has to make sure to pause after every sentence or so, keep her attention focused on the person she’s speaking to while still listening to the other person standing by her. 

Melissa’s unsurprised by the satisfied air Guo Ming has as he looks at them; it’s the same look on Teddy Sanders’ face when she’s in the same room with him--as if he’s not seeing a person, an astronaut, but the culmination of years of work and effort, the millions spent, the hours of overtime used up. To a lot of people, Melissa will never be ‘just’ a person again--she’ll be one half of a larger symbol, progress, determination, NASA’s incompetence, all depending on what political side that person’s on, what they think of spending over 250 million dollars to save two lives. 

Melissa can make her peace with it, she can put a pleasant smile on her face and stand there in an outfit she didn’t pick, that cost more than her first car--and she can even be glad to do it. Because she’s alive, and because Mark is right by her side to share the burden with her. 

At the end of the meeting, Guo Ming says to them both, “It has been a great pleasure to meet you.”

Melissa smiles and shakes his hand once more. “And you as well.”

 _Stage one of NASA’s charm offensive is complete_ , she thinks to herself with a smile, and when Mark grins at her as they walk out of the room, she knows he’s thinking the exact same thing. 

*

A little to Melissa’s surprise, the interviews with Fatima Ali are separate. Most journalists prefer to interview them together, play off Mark and Melissa’s chemistry--or make insinuations about it, whatever’s easiest. But Fatima wants to play it differently. 

After all of Annie’s warnings, Melissa has her guard up, but Fatima disarms her, the two of them chatting comfortably about the hotel room, and soon enough, Melissa’s chuckling as Fatima talks about her struggles with jet lag, the ridiculous things she’s ordered from room service while still in a fugue state. 

And then they get to business. “Some have said that the cost of the Ares program has just been too high. The money spent, the lives that have been risked. In particular, there was a movement that argued spending over 250 million dollars in funding just to save two lives was wildly irresponsible. What would you say to that?”

Melissa just raises an eyebrow. “Is this the point where I argue that my life is worth 250 million dollars?” She presses her lips together before saying, more slowly now. “Mark and I...for the rest of our lives, we’ll represent more than ourselves. We represent the money spent to save us, the efforts of every person who worked overtime for months to keep us alive. I can’t sit here and put a dollar value on our lives, all I can say is that...that we’ll spend the rest of our lives trying to live up to that effort.”

Later that night, Mark asks Melissa over dinner, “You think we’re going to spend the rest of our lives justifying that price tag?”

“Probably,” Melissa says with a shrug. “I can think of worse legacies to live up to though. Can’t you?”

Mark smiles at her, sweetly, the lighting in the hotel’s restaurant hitting him just right, and Melissa is hit with a wave of affection for him that leaves her speechless. “Yeah,” Mark says. “You’re right there.”

His skin looks warm in this lighting, he’s smiling at her just so, and despite the...emotion she’s feeling, despite the vague foreboding in the back of her mind about what that emotion means, Melissa manages to smile. “Aren’t I always?”

Mark chuckles and dips his head in acknowledgment. “That you are, Commander.”

*

Their week in China passes in a blur. They head out to Jianquan to meet the CSNA’s crew at their launch complex. “Don’t worry,” Annie tosses over her shoulders as they walk inside, “--you can’t possibly make a worse impression on them than Mitch did.”

“Well that’s a high bar to clear,” Mark mutters under his breath, but when it’s time to turn on the charm, Mark is indeed a pro, and by now, Melissa’s almost as good at it as he is. 

They’re interviewed on Chinese state television, where the topics center around the Taiyang Shen--understandably so--and the recent idiotic comments of a certain senator from Texas. 

“Of course we disagree with Senator Turbin,” Mark says, frank. “Adam Huang--” Melissa hopes their use of his English name won’t be considered a faux-pas, “--is a fantastic candidate, he’ll be a great asset to the program.”

Melissa decides to go for broke. “Given the interest in the Ares program after our return, it’s a pity that certain individuals have decided to take advantage of that for their own political gain, or for short-term notoriety.”

In the back of the room, Melissa can see Annie looking up to the ceiling, clearly praying for patience. After the interview’s come to an end, she steps forward, hissing, “Is there a reason you went and disrespected Senator Turbin just now?”

“Because I’ve met the man,” Melissa says, bluntly. “I’ll respect him once he learns to respect anyone else.” 

Senator Turbin had been part of the congressional committee in charge of the hearings about Ares 3--and Melissa’s memories of the man are not fond. “Besides,” Melissa adds, nodding her head at Mark, “--would you rather have had Mark slip and call the man an asshole on camera?”

Annie just shudders. 

Their next interviews with Fatima are together, for once, sitting side by side while Fatima smiles at them and asks, “After a year and a half together with Mars, another seven months you spent traveling home on the _Hermes_ \--how is it that you two never seemed to get sick of each other?”

“You’re presuming we didn’t,” Melissa says with a laugh. “After an entire day of listening to his music collection--”

“Or hers,” Mark interjects, but with a grin as he says it.

“--there were definitely a few times when I had to count to ten,” Melissa finishes with a laugh. 

Fatima smiles, but presses on. “But still--your bond is incredible. Every interview you’ve given, you’re still completely in sync, always. So how did you pull that off?”

“Well, Mark’s a good teammate,” Melissa says, simply, and the smile on Fatima’s face lets Melissa know she’s not going to let them off the hook that easily. 

“But still--that much time together, stranded alone on Mars. Every psychologist interviewed has marveled at it, former astronauts have said it’s impossible to spend that much time alone with one other human being without wanting to kill them--or yourselves. How did you two do it?”

Mark comes in there. “Well, to be honest, it’s something we worked at. Really, it’s something that Melissa worked at, just about every day we were there.”

Melissa turns to look at him while he’s saying this, and Mark goes on, glancing at Melissa quickly as he elaborates, “Before we landed on Mars, I would’ve said that Rick Martinez was my best friend on the crew--and he is still is, after everything we’ve been through, I love that guy like a brother. But if it had been the two of us stranded together on Mars, we would’ve been at each other’s throats within a week. It’s not luck or a miracle that Melissa and I worked so well together, a lot of it was Melissa making sure that we were a team, that we were always on the same page.” Mark pauses before adding, with an abashed grin, “I know I can, uh, be a bit much at times with the jokes, and it could have been annoying, especially when I went on that whole space pirate kick--”

“The Dread Pirate Blondbeard,” Fatima murmurs with a smile, and Mark and Melissa chuckle together. 

“Exactly,” Mark says. “Someone else could’ve been annoyed by all of that, but Melissa understood it was my way of coping, blowing off steam. So she ran with it every time, no matter how ridiculous I could get. I can’t stress enough how important that was, having her be on the same page with me every time.”

Melissa swallows, but when Fatima turns to her, she’s ready to say, her voice even, “Mark has a tendency to underestimate his own importance. He kept us going as much as I did, maybe even more.”

“And now?” Fatima asks. “When you first returned home, it was a running joke that you two couldn’t wait to get some distance from each other--some breathing room, as you once put it, Commander. And yet you two are obviously still so close, your families interacting on Twitter and Facebook, the two of you on this tour now. A year after coming home, away from the stress and the constant danger--what does your relationship look like?”

Despite herself, Melissa flashes back to embracing Mark in his hotel room, Mark’s hands lingering on her back, Mark’s lips just brushing her palm. “I think...I think in some ways we’re even closer than before,” Melissa says slowly, and she can feel Mark’s attention on her now, the way he’s turned to look at her. “I mean, we almost have to be--he’s the only other person in the world who’s shared the same experience I have. For the rest of my life, there’s only going to be one other person out there who knows what it was like to be on that planet, who really knows what we went through.” Melissa momentarily looks down at her hands, before squaring her shoulders as she looks at Fatima and finishes, “If this had to happen, I’m glad it was Mark with me out there, and I’m glad that he’s here with me now.”

Once she’s finished speaking, she looks over at Mark, Mark’s who’s been watching her as she says this, and Jesus, the look on his face, how open it is right now--

 _Oh God, don’t look at me like that where everyone can see us_ , Melissa thinks, her stomach leaping--from joy or alarm, she honestly can’t tell anymore. 

Later, when they’re alone in the elevator, riding up to their rooms, blissfully free of any cameras or anyone else watching them--Mark asks quietly, staring up at the ceiling, “Did you mean it?”

Melissa briefly closes her eyes. “Of course I meant it, Mark.”

When she opens her eyes again, Mark’s giving her that look again, but tinged with sadness instead of wonder. Melissa takes a breath, and admits the truth that she cannot share with anyone else, ever. “I have been closer to you than I have been to anyone else in my life,” she admits. “Closer than my own parents, my brother, my--” Melissa stops, but forces herself to say it, “Closer than my own husband. On Mars it was one thing, but we’re home and that’s _still_ true and I--” She closes her eyes again, turning away as she says, “And I can’t work through it when the entire world is watching us.”

“Okay,” Mark says, his voice quiet. “Okay.”

The minute they leave the elevator, they’re swept up by Annie in last-minute preparations for the banquet tomorrow night, and that’s the last real, honest conversation Mark and Melissa have for the rest of the day. 

*

The night of the banquet, Melissa is wearing a gorgeous dress, her hair styled in retro waves, an expensive pair of emerald earrings in her ears, and when Mark opens his door at her knock, she has the pleasure of seeing his mouth fall open as he looks at her. “Wow. Not bad, Lewis.”

“Yeah,” Melissa says with a shrug and a pleased smile. She looks down to where he’s fiddling with his cufflinks and asks, “Want some help?”

“Please,” Mark says immediately, offering her his wrist. As Melissa fixes the cufflinks on, she hears the faint whirring of the drone camera hovering nearby, but doesn’t pull away. Instead she looks up at Mark and says, smiling still, “You look nice.”

“Says the woman who looks ready to pose for _People Magazine_ any minute now,” Mark says, grabbing the jacket to his tux and shrugging into it. 

“Exactly, I clearly know what I’m talking about,” Melissa jokes as Mark closes the door behind him, and they head off to meet Annie, the drone camera trailing them as they go. 

Annie is brimming over with last-minute advice in the car ride to the banquet, and when Mark jokingly says, “Okay, no getting drunk on the champagne, got it,” she stares at them in horror before Melissa says, slowly, “Annie, that was a joke.”

“I’m not actually getting drunk on champagne tonight, I still have to face my mother after this trip’s done,” Mark says, indignant. 

“Don’t try me,” Annie grumbles, sitting back in her seat. “We are _this_ close to getting through this trip without any major disasters, so yes, both of you are limited to one glass of champagne each. Just eat the canapés instead, I’m sure there--”

Melissa knows it’s coming, Mark’s face going studiously blank even as his eyes dart to her at the word canapés, and Melissa tries, she really does, but her face breaks out into a grin, and Mark starts to laugh, and before Annie can so much as blink at them, they’re both bursting into laughter.

“What the hell?” Annie demands, staring at them both like they’ve lost their minds. Her shoulders shaking, Melissa is too overcome to explain, she just waves her hands helplessly as Mark gets out, between laughs, “It--canapés--old joke, sorry--”

It’s ridiculous and juvenile but for once, there aren’t cameras on them, for once Melissa can lean into Mark’s side and do whatever the hell she wants, which in this case is laugh until her stomach hurts. 

Finally as she starts to settle down, Annie still staring at them like they’re ticking bombs, Mark says, still grinning, “Don’t worry about it, Annie, I guess you just had to be there--” and that’s it, Melissa gives up the ghost and whoops with laughter, sinking back down into her seat. 

“Oh my God, you’ve finally cracked,” Annie says in a tone of doom. “Are you fucking kidding me? You pick _now_ to lose your goddamn minds?”

“Not lost,” Melissa says, still chuckling as she straightens up, checks her mascara. “Just--temporarily misplaced.”

“It was an old joke we had back on Mars,” Mark’s explaining to Annie now. “We were reminiscing about all the food we’d eat once we were back home, and I mentioned these canapés I had during some NASA orientation way back when, and Melissa gave me _so_ much shit about it--”

“Out of all the food on Earth, you pick canapés?” Melissa asks. “Not a hamburger, not Thai food, not your mom’s lasagna or meatloaf--”

“Excuse me, you’ve _had_ my mother’s meatloaf, you wouldn’t be longing for it either--”

“--you picked canapés, of _course_ I gave you shit about it--”

“Oh my God, enough,” Annie says as the car comes to a halt. “Okay, new rule--one glass of champagne and _no_ canapés for either of you.”

Outside the car, Melissa can see the telltale flash of cameras going off, and she takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly. Mark glances over at her, and Melissa smiles reassuringly. “I’m fine.”

In a few minutes, the cameras capture Mark getting out of the car first, offering his hand first to Melissa, then to Annie as they step out of the car. Melissa takes Mark’s arm and manages to give a smile and wave to the cameras as they walk past. 

*

At 2am that evening--or morning, rather--Mark and Melissa have returned from the banquet, having stuck to their promise of one glass of champagne each, having eaten plenty of canapés, and, in Melissa’s case, having given a speech that went over beautifully with the crowd. 

“I’m calling this night a success,” Mark says. “We didn’t cause any international incidents, Annie’s head didn’t explode, and I--”

“You got plenty of canapés,” Melissa says with a smile. Mark’s leaning against the door of his hotel room, his tux rumpled and his bow tie loosened, and it’s--it’s a good look on him. “Pity about the champagne, though,” she says after a moment.

Mark raises an eyebrow. “What are you talking about, I thought the champagne was great.”

“It was, which is why I wanted a second glass,” Melissa says. “Unfortunately, it would’ve given Annie a heart attack after that episode in the car, so--”

Mark laughs. “I thought that was what hotel mini-bars are for.”

“Good point,” Melissa says, and hesitates only for a moment before asking, “Have a drink with me?” Mark looks startled, and Melissa explains, self-consciously, “I don’t like drinking alone, and--” she glances around the hallway, which is empty of people or cameras for once, and she adds, “--and no one’s watching us. We can be normal with each other. Or as normal as we ever get, anyway.”

Mark’s expression softens, and he nods at last, his smile small and hopeful. “Yeah, okay. Mini-bar it is.”

And so they go into Mark’s hotel room, and crack open the mini-bar to drink from tiny bottles. Just one bottle each, they’re not looking for hangovers in the morning, but it’s so...it’s so _nice_ , being able to relax around Mark for once without having to think twice, to worry about how it’ll look, what people will see. 

They end up sitting together on the bed, talking about the latest emails from Vogel, back home in Germany with his family, how Beck and Johanssen are doing--Mark’s got money on Beck proposing within the year, while Melissa’s betting that it’ll be Johanssen to pop the question. Melissa has lunch with Martinez regularly, and Martinez is up on all the latest NASA gossip--which he has no qualms about sharing with the Ares 3 crew. 

“This trip was good,” Melissa says with a smile, stretching her legs out in front of her, wiggling her toes--she’d kicked off her heels within minutes of coming into the room. “I was a little worried, with the documentary, but I think it’ll be fair.”

“You think so?” Mark asks, and the odd note in his voice has Melissa turning to him. He’s not looking at her through, he’s frowning at the tiny bottle of vodka in his hands. 

“Sure,” Melissa says slowly. “Unless there’s something in your interviews I should know about?”

“Please, I could do those in my sleep,” Mark says with a scoff. “It’s just the rest of it, the footage they have of us. It could look...interesting.”

Picking her way through, Melissa asks delicately, “You mean from the night when you had nightmares.”

“I mean that--” Mark stops, and says carefully, each word sounding like it costs him something to say out loud, “I’m talking about the way I am around you.”

Melissa is suddenly very aware of the exact inches between herself and Mark, the exact space that’s separating them on this bed. How easy it would be to lean in closer to Mark, how it should be just as easy to pull back. 

Mark finally looks up from his hands, and there it is again--the look on his face that Melissa wants no one else to see, because that look is for _her_ , her alone. “I have no poker face when it comes to you,” Mark says, swallowing hard. “Or so I have been told.”

It takes Melissa a moment to speak. “Well,” she says, her own voice rough in her ears. “Poker faces are overrated, anyway.”

“Melissa,” Mark says, his voice so soft as he says her name. She’s always liked the way her name sounds in his voice, the tenderness in it. “Melissa, come on. You have to know.”

She does know. She’s always known, really. 

“I’ve missed you,” Mark says. “I miss you now, of course, but I...I missed you even more when I was in Houston with you, when we were in rehab and we were supposed to be getting back to normal, I was supposed to be normal around you again and I couldn’t--I couldn’t touch your hair, or share the same bed with you, or even look at you without having to watch myself and it’s not--” He stops, and then forces himself to continue, “It’s not fair to you to have me around, constantly _wanting_ you and not being able to hide it.”

Melissa sits there, and finally the words she’s been holding back for so long come to the surface. “No. It is fair. It’s fair because--” she twists around to face him, to lean in, her voice cracking as she admits, “It’s fair because I want...I want--”

She does want this, she wants this _so much_ and Mark’s there, Mark is right there and Melissa can’t look at him and want him and _not have him_ , not for one single second longer. 

So she kisses him. That’s important, both in the moment and later on--it’s Melissa who makes that decision, Melissa who leans in those last few moments and fits her mouth to his, Melissa who crosses that last, final line. 

Not that she’s thinking about any of that in the moment. No, Melissa can’t think about anything but Mark’s mouth on hers, hot and sure and perfect, the way he’s kissing her like he’s never wanted to do anything else, his hands on her face, in her hair, sliding down to her waist and pulling her in closer, so close and still not enough. 

Melissa gives as good as she gets, her hands in his hair, kissing Mark feverishly, wrapping her arms around him until it almost makes more sense to climb into his lap, to hike up her skirt so she can straddle his waist, to press him down into the bed and kiss him until neither one of them can think. 

“Oh, God,” Mark groans against her mouth, “Jesus...Melissa--”

Melissa pulls back, not to stop, but to see what she’s doing to him, the flush to his cheeks, the dazed look in his eyes, his soft, wet mouth--

And her left hand, cupping his face, her wedding band gleaming faintly as it catches the light. 

Fuck. 

“Oh God,” Melissa says, and Mark blinks, still dazed, before finally coming back to himself. “Oh God, what did I just do.”

The horrible part, the really awful part, is that even after remembering, even after looking at her wedding ring--she still wants to stay. 

Breathing heavily, Melissa clambers off him, distractedly combing back her hair into a semblance of normalcy, wiping at her mouth to make sure her lipstick hasn’t smeared. Mark props himself up on his elbows but doesn’t move apart from that, his face stricken, guilty. 

Melissa doesn’t speak, just goes to the corner and grabs her heels. Once they’re in her hand, once she has no more excuses left, she turns back to say, “I can’t--I have to leave.”

Mark’s eyes are heavy with regret. “Yeah, I know.”

Melissa nods once, her eyes blurring, and then she slips out of the room. There’s no one in the hallway to see her, no cameras to capture her leaving Mark Watney’s room with a rumpled dress and disheveled hair, slipping back into her hotel room like a thief in the night. 

Once she’s safely back in her room, Melissa numbly strips down to her underwear and crawls into bed, not bothering to put on pajamas. She stares up at the ceiling, the echo of Mark’s hands on her body, and waits--either for sleep, or for the morning, whichever comes first.

*

One of the most talked-about parts of the PBS documentary, when it airs, is something Melissa says, when Fatima asks her about the recovery process, how she’s adjusting after Ares 3.

“It’s been...interesting,” Melissa starts to say. “The media attention, obviously, is something we’ve had to come to grips with, but I knew that was coming.”

“What didn’t you see coming?” Fatima asks. “What part of coming home surprised you?”

Melissa opens her mouth to reply, then pauses. The camera captures every second of it, the way she briefly lowers her gaze in thought, the way her lips press together for a moment before she replies. “In my head,” Melissa says finally, “I had this idea that I would come home and just--slip back into my old life. It was never realistic, but when we were on Mars, I couldn’t dare to let myself wallow in fear or being homesick, I just--had to put my head down and get through it, day by day. But when I did let myself think about it, I kept imagining that I’d come home, and it would be the same as it was before. That I would be the same person that I was before.”

“But you’re not,” Fatima says slowly. 

“No,” Melissa says, brushing her hair out of her eyes. “I’m not the same. I never will be again. I can move forward, hopefully, but...going back is impossible for me. I know that, but coming to terms with it is a different story entirely.”

They move into specifics after that, the anxiety Melissa feels sometimes at the strangest moments, the dreams, how it took her ages to get used to opening doors that led to the outside without automatically looking for her EVA suit. All the personal details the public craves, told in a palatable manner, something Melissa uses as a subtle tool to take some of the focus off Mark, away from the footage of his nightmare. 

And yet for Melissa, the part that matters most is what she said to Fatima Ali at the beginning--she’ll never again be the person she was before Mars, before Sol 18.

*

And just like that, the trip is over, and they’re heading home. Mark and Melissa put a good face on it when the cameras are on, and even if Annie is giving them odd looks at times, there’s really nothing she can complain about. They’ve done their jobs, after all.

They fly into the US through Chicago, and Melissa has a connecting flight right out of O’Hare, so she has just a few minutes to say goodbye to Mark. The cameras are gone, Annie’s off making a personal call, so it’s just Mark and Melissa--and the other bystanders, doing a poor job of hiding their gawking. 

Melissa folds her hands in front of her, careful to keep a proper amount of space between them, and says, putting her best smile on, “Say hello to your parents for me.”

“Of course,” Mark says. “Have a--a safe flight home.”

Melissa swallows, hating every single second of this. “Mark,” she begins, looking back up at him. “We’re going to be okay.”

It’s a promise she’s been making to him since Sol 18, and she’s meant it every time she’s said it. Even this time, when she has no idea how to make it true. 

“Of course we will,” Mark says. “Melissa--” Whatever he’s about to say next, he thinks better of it, shaking his head a little and giving her a soft smile. “I’ll talk to you soon.”

“Yeah,” Melissa says. “Of course.”

*

And they do talk, through emails. _Brief_ emails. No late-night phone calls that last for hours, no quick check-ins during the day. Instead Mark sends off quick, short little notes that are meant to amuse--funny, surface little things that don’t reveal anything important at all. 

It cuts, but Melissa can’t blame him. Melissa has a ring on her finger and promises she’d made years before she met Mark; if Mark needs distance from her now, that’s what she’ll give him.

Melissa’s marriage is...much the same as it was when she left for China. She and Robert are both trying, they really are, it’s just...it’s _work_ , made even more painful by the fact that Melissa can remember so well when her marriage had been anything but work. 

It used to be so easy being married to Robert, and now Melissa has to think through every interaction, every conversation, and it is just exhausting. 

But she’s managing. She manages it all somehow, and then a month after China, the PBS documentary airs on TV, and everything goes to shit. 

*

Melissa gets an advance copy of the documentary from Annie, sent to her office on a USB drive with a post-it that reads, _Call me when you’ve finished._

Melissa waits until she’s at home to watch it, holed up in the bedroom with a bottle of Shiraz, Robert having gone out for the night with buddies. She watches it on her laptop, her headphones in, and when the credits roll, she sets the empty bottle of wine on her dresser and calls Annie. 

“Okay, so what now?” she asks when Annie answers the phone. 

Annie sighs. “You know, I am having dinner with my very understanding boyfriend right now, Melissa--”

“You said to call when I finished it, I’ve finished it,” Melissa says. “So what next?”

“What’s next is I keep saying no fucking comment when the media starts digging into your sex life,” Annie says with a sigh. “What happens is that any of your family members on social media should either get _off_ social media or get used to not responding to the trolls.”

“They’re already used to that,” Melissa says, flatly. 

Annie sighs and says, more gently now, “Look, it’s--it’s a great documentary. You and Mark come off really well in it, NASA looks great, it’s a win for international cooperation. You guys did everything we asked for and more, it’s just…”

“It’s just that we don’t have poker faces,” Melissa says quietly.

There’s a brief pause before Annie speaks, which means she heard the implicit confession in Melissa’s words. “No,” she agrees. “You don’t.”

After she hangs up, Melissa checks her email once again to see if there’s anything from Mark, and there isn’t. She’s sure he’s gotten a copy of the documentary as well, he just...hasn’t contacted her. Melissa looks down at her phone, exhales, and then turns it off, putting her laptop to the side as she gets ready for bed.

Melissa’s asleep by the time Robert comes home, only dimly registering it when his side of the bed dips as he climbs in under the covers.

On the night the documentary airs, Melissa begs off watching it with Robert, instead holing up in the study and pretending to read scientific papers, all the while checking her watch to see what part of the documentary has aired yet, checking her inbox to see if Mark’s said anything. She shouldn’t do either, and yet here she is.

At 10:00 her phone buzzes with an incoming text, not from Mark, but from Caleb. _Hey, can we talk?_

Melissa swallows, and picks up the phone to call her brother. “Hey,” she says when he picks up. “Watch anything fun on TV tonight?”

Caleb laughs, but it’s an awkward, stilted laugh. “Yeah, you know. Might’ve been something on PBS tonight.” He adds, lightly, “Diana wanted me to tell you that you looked great at that banquet. Apparently the Old Hollywood look really suits you, whatever that means.”

“Thanks,” Melissa says. She doesn’t smile at the compliment, because she knows that more is coming.

And it comes, Caleb pausing for a moment before saying in a rush, “Melissa--okay, before I start, I want you to know that I love you, all right? You’re my big sister and I love you, and I just want what’s best for you, okay?”

Melissa swallows. Her family always does this now, always make sure to assure her of their love before ending every phone call, before starting on any difficult topic. “It’s okay. Just say what you want to say.”

Caleb lets out a breath, and asks her, “What exactly is going on between you and Mark?”

“What do you think’s happening with us?” Melissa asks.

“I have no fucking clue,” Caleb answers, bluntly. “I know you and Robert are having problems. I know Mark’s a great guy, I know you two are close, I know that…” He trails off, then continues with determination, “I know a lot of people are speculating about your relationship and Melissa, I’m sorry, but when I see you guys together, in person and on TV, I get why they’re asking. He’s--the way he looks at you isn’t subtle. Or platonic.”

Melissa swallows, shame burning through her, and finally says, quietly, “Yeah, I know.”

Caleb lets out a long breath. “Okay. Okay, so--so what’s happening here, is this like, transference? Delayed reaction to trauma?”

“No,” Melissa says quietly. “No, it’s not that.”

Caleb doesn’t say anything, not for the longest time, before he finally says, low and heartfelt, “Jesus Christ.” Another pause, and then he asks, “So what now? What are you going to do?”

Melissa swallows twice before she can speak. “When I figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

“You looked really happy in that documentary,” Caleb says, his voice quiet. “Every time they cut to the two of you together, you looked--happier than I’ve seen you in a while.”

Melissa closes her eyes. “I was,” she admits, her voice a whisper. 

The study door opens, and Robert stands in the doorway, his body tense and his lips pressed tightly together. Melissa meets her husband’s unhappy gaze dead on, and she says into her phone, “Listen, I’ll call you later, okay?”

“Okay,” Caleb says. “Talk to you soon, all right?”

“Yeah, of course. Goodnight.” Melissa hangs up, and Robert asks, his voice deadly quiet, “Was that Mark?”

“No, it was Caleb,” Melissa says, tossing her phone onto the desk.

“Well, that’s a relief,” Robert says, and Melissa can hear the barely-checked anger in his voice, months of frustration coming to a head at last. “Wouldn’t want to interrupt any of your conversations with him, would I?”

Melissa doesn’t react, not right away. “Robert, if there’s a question you want to ask me, then ask it.”

Robert doesn’t say anything at first, he just takes a seat in the other chair opposite the desk, clearly gathering himself for whatever he’s about to say. “You know,” he says at last, staring down at his hands, “I knew things would be difficult, when you came back. I knew there would be an adjustment period. I thought I was prepared for it, I really did, but this is not--” He blows out a long breath. “This is not what I was expecting, Melissa.”

“I know you didn’t sign up for this,” Melissa says, each word heavy on her tongue. “I’m sorry.”

Robert shakes his head quickly. “What are you apologizing for? For treating me like an inconvenient roommate instead of your husband? For shutting me out this past year? And you know, maybe part of that’s on me, maybe I should’ve pushed sooner, said something earlier. But you wanted your space, and I gave it to you. I gave you space for a _year_ , and you just...you kept talking to Mark Watney instead.”

Melissa can’t argue with any of it. It’s true, after all. 

Robert exhales and looks down at the floor before he speaks again. “The funny thing is, I wouldn’t even have cared if you had slept with him on Mars.” Melissa opens her mouth, and Robert looks up and says quickly, “I know you didn’t, but...even if you had, I wouldn’t have cared about that, what I care about is--” Robert stops talking, and rubs at his face before he continues. “I care that you two came back home and everyone, _everyone_ could tell that he was in love with you. I saw it, our parents saw it, hell, the entire world saw it.” Robert stares at her for a long moment before delivering the final, brutal blow. “Melissa, _you_ saw it. And you just...you didn’t care.”

Oh, but she did care. Melissa looks away, gathering herself, and when she looks back up, Robert’s watching her, with so much pain and love in his face that Melissa has to look away again, guilt rising up in her throat. 

“I’m not asking for things to go back to the way they were,” Robert says, his voice gentler now. “I’m just...Melissa, I’m just asking you to try, okay? Please. Just try.”

“Of course,” Melissa says, because it’s the right answer, the only answer to give him. “Of course. We’ll try.”

The next morning, Robert makes an appointment with a marriage counselor, and Melissa deletes the draft of an email she’d never sent to Mark, and never will send now. 

*

Over the next two months, Robert and Melissa go to a handful of therapy sessions with a very highly rated, very discreet marriage counselor. It goes...about as well as it can go. Melissa listens, and she tries to do better. She goes through the exercises, deliberately saves up work stories to share with Robert at dinner, holds his hand when they go out on date night. It all still feels horribly _deliberate_ , like she’s acting out the motions, but dimly, Melissa can see a possible future now, better than what they have, one where she’s content. 

Melissa doesn’t hear from Mark, not directly. Oh, they’re all in contact, of course--the crew still emails each other constantly, and the video calls are still a regular thing, even if Melissa’s heart jumps every time Mark sends out a message, attached with a photo of him smiling with his family on opening day at Wrigley Field, his smile the brightest thing in the photograph. Melissa stares at that photograph until her vision blurs, and then deletes it before she can think twice. 

“You doing okay there, Commander?” Martinez asks during one of their regular lunches, watching her carefully as Melissa spears her salad with a fork.

“Of course, why?” Melissa asks distractedly.

Martinez shrugs, elaborately casual. “You’ve just seemed a little down lately, that’s all. You didn’t even laugh at me when the Knicks got eliminated from playoff contention last week.”

“That’s like laughing when the sun comes up, you don’t laugh at something that’s guaranteed,” Melissa says with a snort, and Martinez dramatically clutches at his chest, pretending to be wounded. 

“Why do you have to go there like that,” he says, faux-mournful. He drops the act quickly, though, asking, “Seriously, what’s going on with you?”

Melissa doesn’t reply at first, just staring down at her unappetizing salad. She could talk to Martinez, possibly--she’s not his commanding officer anymore, and after the _Hermes_ mutiny, whatever lines there were blurred to the point of no longer existing. All the same, this isn’t the kind of thing you can share over lunch in the cafeteria, with strangers in relative earshot. “I’m fine,” Melissa says, with a brief smile. “It’s nothing.”

Martinez isn’t buying it. “Is it the same nothing that’s got Mark moping all over Chicago?” Melissa looks up at that, startled, and Martinez gives her a look in return. “Yeah, he’s not exactly subtle, our boy.” When Melissa doesn’t reply at this, Martinez shrugs again, poking at his hash browns as he adds, “I don’t know, maybe you should just talk to him about it.”

Melissa chooses her words carefully before she speaks. “I’m not sure that’s such a good idea.”

Martinez raises an eyebrow. “Not that I’d ever tell you what to do, Commander,” he says, putting a hand on his heart, “--because my mom, God bless her, didn’t raise a dummy for a son, but--it looks like you miss him. And he definitely misses you, so just think about it.”

Melissa nods finally. “Okay, yeah. Thanks, Martinez.”

He brushes it off, turning his attention back to his plate. “No worries.” 

Melissa watches him for a moment, and finally smiles as she says, teasing, “It is a shame about those Knicks, though.” 

Martinez tosses his napkin down at this with a mock glare. “Didn’t I just say we didn’t have to do this?” At his deliberately fake outrage, Melissa just laughs. 

*

In another universe, it would be Chris Beck and Beth Johanssen who’d be getting the brunt of the media attention over their relationship. They’re two young, attractive astronauts who shacked up together pretty much immediately upon returning home, but thanks to the ‘Martians’ juggernaut, they’ve mostly flown under the radar. 

Until Beck proposes to Johanssen, and the media gets wind of it via a post by one of Johanssen’s cousins on Facebook. 

This wouldn’t be a problem, except it inspires TMZ to run a “Where Are They Now” feature on their website. Martinez and Vogel escape unscathed, and Beck and Johanssen are fine aside from the one or two remarks about Beck growing up with a silver spoon in his mouth, given his privileged background in the Connecticut suburbs--but, as always, it comes down to Mark and Melissa. 

Mark’s kept a relatively low profile in Chicago recently, and Melissa’s done the same in Houston. That doesn’t stop TMZ from running a salacious--and unfortunately accurate--post-mortem on Melissa’s marriage, with shots of Robert and Melissa leaving their therapist’s office together, their body language awkward and telling. 

And then there are the shots of Robert out in public with one of his coworkers. His coworker Angelica, who Melissa’s met a couple of times briefly. Angelica, who is beautiful and charming, and who in the photographs is leaning in close to Robert over their lunch table, her hand on Robert’s knee, their heads close together as Robert talks to her urgently. 

It looks so suggestive, so _telling_. The photographs alone sell the story for TMZ, although God knows they’ve added plenty of their own seedy commentary as well. 

Melissa stares at the article on her laptop, then closes it, making sure to turn off her phone as well. 

She’s in her bedroom when Robert comes home early from work that day. “Melissa?” he calls out, sounding upset and worried, and Melissa calls back, “I’m up here.”

He takes the stairs two at a time, looking harried when he comes in. “Babe, have you seen--” And then he sees the open suitcase on the bed, and his shoulders slump. “Oh, Jesus. Melissa, look--”

Melissa steps back from the suitcase, the clothes she’s folding. “Robert, it’s okay--”

“No, listen to me, that story is _bullshit_ ,” Robert insists, vehement. He reaches for Melissa’s hands, and Melissa lets him take them. “Angelica’s just a friend--a good friend, yes, but a _friend_. She’s been with her boyfriend for two years, I’ve been venting to her sometimes and I guess one of our coworkers must have tipped someone off about our lunches, and I know it looks bad, but I’m not--”

“Robert,” Melissa says, cutting him off. “Robert, I believe you. Of course I believe you.”

That cuts Robert off right in his tracks. His expression flares with momentary hope, then he looks with confusion to the suitcase, already half-filled with her things. “Then why--”

Melissa takes a breath, and when she starts to speak at last, her voice is shaking. “First, I’m sorry.” Robert’s hands reflexively tighten around hers, and she squeezes back. “I am, because you’re right. I didn’t try when I got home, I just put you aside because that was...easier for me, but it wasn’t fair to you at all, and I am so sorry about that.”

Robert’s watching her through all this, his mouth a thin line, his entire body tensed, waiting for the blow. Because he knows her, and on some level, he knows what’s coming next.

She can’t drag it out any longer, not with excuses or apologies, not with the false hope that things will change, that she can forget what she’s truly wanted for so long now. “I saw the photos. It took me just a few seconds to realize they were out of context, I know you weren’t cheating, Robert, I _know_ that. But when I saw them--for just that one second I thought it was true, and I was relieved. Because I wanted the out, because right then I thought I had an excuse to leave.”

Robert is very still, his hands cold in hers, his eyes dark and wounded in his face. “And that’s why I’m packing,” Melissa says, her voice thin and pained. “Because if I can think that, even for just a moment, then I can’t stay.”

For a long, long moment, neither one of them say a word.

“You never really came home from Mars, did you,” Robert says slowly. 

_I didn’t come back to you,_ Melissa thinks, and when he drops her hands, she breathes out a low sigh, barely audible in the silence.

*

Melissa is on a red-eye to Chicago that same night. She keeps her hair tucked underneath a baseball cap, her chin tucked low and headphones in her ears to avoid recognition. She takes a personal day from work, and sends a message to Annie that reads simply, _FYI I’m going to Chicago this weekend._

Annie’s reply comes while she’s waiting to board the plane. _Fuck my entire life right now. STAY INSIDE HIS APARTMENT._

 _Copy that_ , Melissa sends back before she shuts her phone off. 

Objectively, this is insane. The prudent move would be to wait this out, go back to counseling, call her family for advice. Melissa is aware of that, she is. She just...she just can’t bring herself to _care_ , not after months of telling herself to play it smart, play it safe, trying to convince herself that what she wanted would go away, that she’d come to her senses any day now. 

Melissa has been doing all that for months now, and all it’s done is delayed the inevitable. Because this is the part that she can’t shake, the part that no one has said when it comes to the documentaries, the photographs, the video footage of her and Mark--yes, Mark is always smiling at her, around her. Yes, his feelings are right there for the world to see.

But in every camera shot, in every clip, throughout that entire two-hour documentary--Melissa is always, always smiling back at him. Because she wants to, because it’s the easiest thing in the world for her to do when Mark Watney is smiling at her like that. It’s as easy and as necessary as breathing.

*

It’s raining when she gets to Chicago, hard enough that Melissa is soaked from the brief run to her taxi, and even if her driver does an obvious double-take when he sees who’s in the backseat, he mercifully doesn’t say a word for the entire drive from O’Hare to Mark’s apartment building. Melissa gives him an exorbitantly large tip, wheels her luggage inside the building, and it isn’t until she’s actually in the elevator that she turns her phone on, ignoring the messages from her family and texting Mark with, _Are you home right now?_ Her fingers are trembling from nerves, badly enough that she has to type the message twice to avoid typos.

The elevator doors are opening when Mark’s reply chimes on her phone. _Yes, why?_

Melissa slips her phone into her pocket, not bothering to reply, and she’s only a couple feet away from Mark’s door when he opens the door and steps outside, his eyes going wide as he sees Melissa dripping water all over the hallway, her suitcase trailing behind her. 

“Holy fucking shit,” Mark says. He stares at her for a moment longer, disbelieving, before coming back to himself and ushering her into the apartment. 

“I should’ve called first, I’m sorry,” Melissa says, her voice tight, not letting herself look at Mark as she shucks off her sneakers, her rain-soaked sweatshirt. She brushes her damp hair away from her forehead, taking in a deep, long breath before turning to face Mark head on. 

She catches the moment when Mark glances down to her left hand, watches as his eyes grow wider as he sees what isn’t there. “It’s fine,” Mark says faintly. “It’s fine, I don’t--Jesus _Christ_ , Melissa.”

“I left Robert,” Melissa interjects, her voice sounding too loud and blunt to her own ears. 

Mark’s mouth actually falls open from shock, then his face rapidly darkens. “Wait, so that story in TMZ--”

“That was a lie,” Melissa says quickly. “He never...I’m not leaving him because of what he did. This is about me.” She swallows, her heart pounding as she admits, “And you.”

Mark’s gone quiet now, watching her, his eyes wide and dark in his face. 

“I tried,” Melissa says, her voice wavering, “I tried to be good. I tried to put this aside, I told myself it couldn’t happen, that I wasn’t thinking straight, that I needed to move on and put all this behind me. And I could’ve done it. I could have gotten over you, I could’ve lived my life without you, I just...I just don’t _want_ to.”

Mark still hasn’t moved. Or spoken. Fuck, she can barely even tell if he’s breathing right now. After a moment that stretches for too long, Melissa cracks and says, “Mark, for fuck’s sake, just say something--”

“Oh, thank God,” Mark says, heartfelt, and before Melissa can so much as blink, he’s stepping forward and pulling her into an embrace, and his lips are on hers, and Melissa shudders from relief, from joy, and kisses him back.

*

Technically, Mark has already seen her undressed--and vice versa--so there really is no need for Melissa’s heart to be pounding this hard as they stumble to the bedroom, kissing the entire way.

But it is. Despite everything they've done together, everything they've already shared, it's such a shock to have these last barriers tumbling down. To have Mark’s hands on her body, his mouth on hers, to be able to kiss him back and know that that this time, they won't have to _stop_ \--

Once they're in the bedroom, Mark clumsily kicking the door shut behind them, Melissa pulls away just far enough to shuck her shirt over her head. 

Her skin prickling, Melissa’s breathing picks up even more as Mark stares at her, his admiration clear on his face. “You know this isn't the first time you've seen me in a sports bra, right?” she jokes, but her voice is unsteady as she does it.

“You're just…” Mark trails off, his gaze skimming over her exposed skin; then he looks back up at her face and finishes simply, “You’re beautiful.”

It's not the first time Melissa’s been called that, but the heartfelt sincerity in his voice has her swallowing before she's able to say, “You too.” 

She blushes a bit as Mark grins at her, but his grin fades as he approaches, stepping in close as he says, more softly now, “Just...just let me do this, okay?”

Melissa’s about to ask what he means, but then Mark’s hands wrap around the bare curve of her waist, and what comes out instead is, “Okay. Anything you want.”

What Mark means by that, it turns out, is undressing Melissa slowly, with such care and delicacy that by the time Mark is on his knees, helping Melissa step out of her jeans, her heart is pounding in her ears. The ache in her body, between her legs, only intensifying as she looks down at Mark’s bowed head, as she feels his hand skimming along her calf, his finger brushing against the surgical scars on her ankle as he takes her socks off.

Melissa has never once thought there could be a sexy way to remove someone’s socks, but she's so turned on that nearly everything is charged right now, and the way that Mark’s touching her, the reverence in his face as he looks up at her…

“Mark,” Melissa murmurs, reaching down to touch him, her thumb running across his lower lip, sighing faintly as his tongue flickers out to just barely taste her skin.

“Let me do this,” Mark says softly again, rising back up to his feet, leading Melissa backwards to the bed, his hands on her hips, not forceful or frantic but gently insistent all the while. 

Melissa lets him, lets herself be guided until she's resting on her back against Mark’s plain, navy blue sheets. A part of her mind knows the picture she must make right now, her red hair loose around her face, her pale skin contrasting against the sheets. 

She knows what she looks like, because Mark’s expression as he stares at her--awed, hazy with desire--tells her.

Melissa licks her dry lips and says, her voice hoarse in the still silence of the room. “Mark. Take your clothes off.”

He does, immediately, his haste a startling contrast to the deliberate care with which he undressed her. Melissa lies back and unrepentantly enjoys the view, his broad shoulders and chest, the sight of all that skin--

Once he's completely naked, Mark comes to her on the bed, crawling over her body until he's hovering above her, bracing himself with his elbows.

They stay like that for a moment before Melissa finally asks, unsteadily, “Mark, are you--”

“Let me do this,” Mark murmurs once more, his eyes dark, and lowers his mouth to her cheek, her jaw, the hollow of her throat. He lingers there for a moment, his lips and tongue hot on her skin, while Melissa clutches at his shoulders and back and tries to remember how to breathe.

It's a task that might be beyond her as Mark continues to move his way down her body, his mouth trailing along her collarbone, her breasts. Melissa gives up the ghost and lets her hand tangle in his short hair, urging him downward as he makes his way down her abdomen.

Finally he's between her legs, his hands curving around her waist, gently pressing Melissa down into the bed.

“You have no idea,” Mark says in a low voice, his breath coming in warm puffs along Melissa’s thighs, “--how long I’ve been waiting to do this.”

Melissa shivers at this, and reaches down to cup Mark’s cheek in her hands, one of her fingers just brushing the shell of his ear. Mark leans into the touch, his eyes falling shut for a moment, and Melissa sighs with pleasure, melting back into the bed at the sight. “I think I have some idea.”

Mark opens his eyes at that. “No, you really don’t. I tried,” he punctuates the sentence with a kiss below Melissa’s belly button, and another one below that, “--I tried not to but I couldn’t--I just kept thinking about doing this to you all the time--”

Melissa squirms a little, pushing back against Mark’s hands, which have a firm grip on her thighs now, holding her down. “Instead of thinking about it, you could be doing it right now,” she points out, her voice tight, and Mark grins up at her, teasing. 

“Huh, I really could. How about that.”

Before Melissa can argue, or kick at him with her foot, Mark is finally, finally lowering his head, his lips and tongue hot against her cunt, her clit, and Melissa groans and spreads her legs wider, urging him on. 

On the rare, shameful occasions when Melissa had let herself think of Mark like this, she’d always fantasized the most about having him go down on her, that clever mouth of his between her thighs, his tongue on her clit. Of course, even those brief fantasies can’t compare to the real thing, the way that Mark slips three fingers inside of her and sucks at her clit until Melissa is gasping, pushing back against his mouth and his hand until she finally comes with a soft cry, her mind wiped blissfully blank. 

“Oh Jesus,” she groans, pushing her hair off her flushed face. “Mark, I want--come _here_ already, God.”

Mark’s already moving back up her body, wiping at his wet mouth with the back of his hand. Despite having already come, Melissa’s entire body seems to melt at finally having Mark like this, the warm solid weight of him everywhere, all that bare skin pressed against hers. 

She tugs him down for a kiss, licking the taste of herself out of his mouth, swallowing up his low groans as he grinds his still-hard cock against her bare thigh. “Lie back,” she mumbles against his mouth, but she doesn’t wait for him to follow, just uses her leverage to roll him onto his back, and straddles his waist. 

Brushing her hair out of her face, Melissa grins at the way Mark’s watching her, dazed, like she’s the most incredible thing he’s ever seen in his life. “Melissa…” Mark’s voice trails off, and he lets his hand brush against her side, the touch tender, soft. “You know I’m in love with you, right?”

Melissa smiles, and takes her hand in his, pulling it up to her lips to brush a kiss against his knuckles, before guiding his hand to wrap around her waist, his hand warm against her skin. “Yeah, I know.” The next part takes effort to say, even though it’s the truth. Maybe especially because it’s the truth. “I love you too.”

Mark’s answering smile is the best thing she’s seen in God knows how long. “I know.”

*

That night, when Melissa feels Mark’s fingers lightly combing through her hair, she smiles, and sleepily curls in closer to him, tucking her head against his chest. Mark’s arms are warm and solid around her, his hands gentle as they continue to comb through her hair, and Melissa falls asleep to the sound of his heartbeat, thumping faintly against her ear.

epilogue:

About a year later, Melissa is driving over to Mark’s new house in Houston when her phone rings. Melissa smiles as she sees Mark’s name on the display, and picks up. “Don’t worry, I picked up the seeds and compost soil from the nursery, I’m on my way over now.”

“That’s great, thanks,” Mark says, “--and also, we’ve been made. Just so you know.”

Melissa doesn’t figure out what he means until she reaches the house. Parking her car in the driveway, Melissa doesn’t bother searching for Mark inside, she just circles around, opening the door to the fence and stepping into the backyard, where Mark’s hard at work plotting out the garden. 

And sure enough, Mark’s there in the backyard with the tomato plants, smudges of dirt across his forehead and cheek, his gardening gloves on and his face flushed from work. Melissa hangs back for a moment to enjoy the view before calling out to him, “Hey, there.”

Mark looks up at her voice, and his face breaks out into a smile. “Hey.” He immediately goes over to softly kiss her on the mouth, and when he pulls back, looks her over and says, “So you haven’t checked your email yet, have you.”

“I’ve been running errands for you all afternoon, of course I haven’t,” Melissa says. “And what did you mean when you said we’ve been made?”

“Someone caught us last night grocery shopping at the co-op, there’s apparently a photo making the rounds on Twitter.” Melissa makes a low groan in her throat, reaching for her phone in her back pocket, and Mark shrugs, walking back over to the plants. “Yeah, I know. Honestly, I’m mostly impressed it hasn’t happened before now.”

“We’ve been careful,” Melissa points out, and it’s true. Despite Mark moving back to Houston and taking a job with NASA in their Astronaut Candidate Program, working alongside Melissa, they’ve kept their relationship quiet while Melissa’s divorce was being finalized. They did it for a lot of reasons, but it meant a lot of quiet nights in, obviously no displays of affection in public, and a lot of listening to Annie’s advice without ever daring to talk back.

Of course, the quiet couldn’t last forever. Melissa pulls up the email on her phone and raises an eyebrow at the subject line, asking Mark rhetorically, “Do you think Annie just copy-and-pastes all those exclamation points?”

“I will pay you all the money in the world if you ask her that question to her face,” Mark immediately says, and Melissa snorts as she opens up the attachment of the photo. 

It’s a grainy photo, just like Mark had said, but it’s unmistakably them in it--Mark pushing the shopping cart, wearing the Minnesota Lynx sweatshirt Melissa had bought him for Christmas. Melissa is standing by the shelves, gesturing at something, her body language easy and relaxed as she looks back at Mark.

“On the plus side,” Mark’s saying now, “Martinez texted me to say he won his bet with Beck on when the news would break; Beck was convinced the media would find out before now. I made Martinez promise to take us out for dinner on his winnings, so…”

Melissa doesn’t respond, still looking at the photo, and Mark trails off before asking finally, “Melissa, you okay?”

“Yeah,” Melissa says slowly, realizing it’s true as she says it. “It’s just--” She looks up at Mark and says, simply, “It’s a good photo of us.”

Mark slowly starts to smile, stepping forward towards her once more. “Yeah. Yeah, it is.” 

Once Mark is by her side, Melissa kisses him there, in the garden they’ve barely started creating together, the afternoon sun warm on her skin. There’s a high fence erected around the house to keep people from looking in on them, but for the first time, Melissa doesn’t care if they do. 

*

A few days later, another photo emerges of Melissa leaving Mark’s house early in the morning. Melissa deletes Annie’s email after reading it, but she saves the photo to her phone to keep.


End file.
